


Closing Walls And Ticking Clocks

by OrianDCate



Category: Destiny (Video Games), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Fireteam Osiris - Freeform, First War with Voldemort, Gambit (Destiny), Hogwarts, Infinite Forest (Destiny), Master of Death Harry Potter, SIVA (Destiny) - Freeform, The Iron Lords (Destiny), Time Travel, Vault of Glass, Vex (Destiny) - Freeform, warmind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:27:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 65,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24796924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrianDCate/pseuds/OrianDCate
Summary: "Master of Death" is more than just a title, but not in the way you think. Time travel. But also not in the way you think. We're not in Hogwarts anymore...but we're headed there once again. After the war...and somehow also before it. And it is now that Harry Potter must make his own Fate.
Relationships: Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Harry Potter
Comments: 59
Kudos: 242





	1. What's The Point Of Being Grown Up...

I own nothing. Least of all this.

* * *

_“Confusion that never stops,_

_Closing walls and ticking clocks_

_Gonna_

_Come back and take you home_

_I could not stop,_

_That you now know…”_

_\- Clocks_

1) WHAT’S THE POINT OF BEING GROWN UP…

Bellatrix Black was not, in fact, a psychopath.

The very idea was ludicrous.

The definition of a psychopath was that they were incapable of feeling emotions. Oh, they could fake well enough, and in some cases pass as perfectly ordinary people; all the while contemplating things that would horrify anyone they knew if they were to ever disclose them.

The exact opposite was true for Bellatrix.

She felt everything too deeply; she always had, and she always would. The love she held for her sisters, the hatred for those of muggle birth who disrespected every tradition her world held dear, and more recently, the desire to prove herself.

Not just to the Knights of Walpurgis, whose ranks she would be joining today, but to all those who dared to belittle her simply because she was born a daughter, and not a son. To the Lords who had kept their society safe for centuries, and to those who were even now working to eradicate yet another threat to it.

To the Lord of the Knights of Walpurgis himself.

And this is how she would begin.

Her orders were clear: this was to be a simple example, nothing more. The selected site for their mission statement was a muggle pub, just down the street from the Leaky Cauldron itself. A group of the more experienced would enter through the back, and drive the muggle filth through the front, out into the open. She and the rest of the initiates would be waiting for them. Their job was to put them down like the animals they were: cleanly, swiftly, with nary a tinge of either mercy or pleasure. The bodies left to rot in the middle of the road would be message enough.

She was giddy with excitement as the first Notice-Me-Not charms went up. She was ecstatic as the first cries from the victims inside reached her ears. And she was positively gleeful when the first burning figures stumbled out the front entrance into their line of fire.

But when she realized that the burning figures were fellow Knights, ones much more powerful than she…

When it sunk into her head that the cries from inside the pub had been the voices of her fellow purebloods…

And when the burning corpses on the ground in front of her finally stopped twitching, a single man strode out. Burning sword in one hand, bleeding blade in the other, and bringing Death in his wake…

She truly began to consider whether or not she might be a psychopath after all.

Because she felt nothing.

Absolutely nothing at all.

* * *

Harry Potter did not, in fact, go looking for trouble.

What he _did_ go looking for was adventure.

What, exactly, was the difference between the two? Well, only Harry himself could tell you that.

It had started simply enough: a single decision, made only slightly different from the one he once would have made. But the outcome of that decision had been oh so very different.

The Battle of Hogwarts. The Forbidden Forest. The opening of the Snitch. And the use of the Stone…all these as they should have been. But, when the time came for him to move on, to face Voldemort and die, he found he could not let the Stone go.

Not for his own sake: he had seen what he needed to see. But for the others…the others that had lost someone today. And for the many more that would inevitably fall alongside them.

To give George Weasley one last conversation with his twin…

That alone was reason enough to keep it.

And so, onto his finger it had slipped, to remain there even after his death. If his friends managed to succeed without him…if the war was won through his sacrifice…Hermione knew what the Stone looked like. She would know what to do with it; who could use it the most. And if they lost…well, if they lost, he supposed it really wouldn’t matter, would it?

Everything after that had passed so quickly. King’s Cross, coming back, Narcissa Malfoy’s lie, the final confrontation, Neville, Nagini…

It was only when Harry stood for the last time before the wizard formerly known as Tom Riddle that everything went truly, terribly wrong.

There was never any question as to who actually had true mastery of the Elder Wand. Riddle’s Killing Curse rebounded yet again, striking the Dark Lord in the chest. As his body sank to the ground, the Death-stick had flown through the air, Harry’s Disarming Spell calling it back to its true owner. But once it hit his outstretched hand, the Resurrection Stone still on his finger, and the Invisibility Cloak folded in his back pocket…

There was a brilliant flash of light, and it was only once everyone’s vision had once more restored that they realized someone was missing.

Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, had vanished from the Wizarding World entirely.

* * *

He had awoken surrounded by swirls of glowing light, laced together like spider webs, but larger even than those of the Acromantula. They had looped and stretched as far as the eye could see, and in their path there hung islands made up of a tan material that Harry couldn’t identify. But what had truly grabbed his attention was the absolutely massive eye staring down at him, as if into his very soul.

Harry had then done something that even _he_ would have categorized as foolish:

He had jabbed his wand up…directly into the eye itself.

The resulting shrieks of pain, while slightly metallic sounding, had reassured him that whatever had captured him was alive, if decidedly non-human. He had taken advantage of the creature’s distraction to roll off of the table he had awoken on and back as far away from the thing as possible. He raised his wand arm to cast…only to realize the wand was no longer in his hand.

Yep, there it was. Still stuck in the creature’s eye.

He had whirled around, looking for the other wand he was sure must have come with him. If a regular old wand owned by _Draco Malfoy_ could survive getting captured, then the infamous Death-stick could as well, one would think. But aside from the piece currently impairing his captor’s vision, there wasn’t a twig of wood to be seen anywhere in the room.

He had turned back to the creature, already planning a suicidal charge forward to retrieve his weapon, when the massive, rotating, _thing_ , had given one final shriek, and then shot a purple blast of energy directly at him… _from its eyeball._

The blast vaporized Harry in an instant.

The vapor hung for a moment in the air, as if surprised at its current state of existence. Then, the vapor had become a cloud. The cloud became dust. The dust became clumps. The clumps became flesh.

And then the flesh had become Harry Potter once more.

The Cyclops (for that was what it was) would normally have noticed paracausal activity of this sort, seeing as how investigation into said reality-breaking powers was what it had been invested with as a Vex Mind, were it not for the damage caused by Harry’s wand-jabbing, atop the foolish attempt to shoot an eye-burst around said obstruction. Its vision was now completely obscured, and would have remained so for some time until the Vex could repair it, were it not for certain events that happened very rapidly afterwards.

If the Cyclops had still been capable of seeing, the first thing it would have observed would have been the reconstructed Harry Potter gasp for air, his eyes flying open. The next thing it would have noticed was the fact that Harry’s eyes contained, for a brief moment, the image of a bisected and inscribed triangle instead of his normal pupils. And the last thing it would have seen was the outstretched wand arm of the boy, aimed directly at its only weak spot.

What it _heard,_ however, just before it backed up its memory to the Vex Network for the last time, were two words it had feared ever since reading of them in the legends of the last remaining traces of humanity:

**“Avada Kedavra.”**

* * *

The Vault of Glass.

That was where Harry was.

Now exactly _where_ the Vault of Glass was, well, he couldn’t say for certain.

After the whole “coming-back-to-life-for-the-third-time” schtick, Harry had immediately crawled over to the corpse of the sentient machine to retrieved his wand. Once it was in his hands once more, he immediately realized it would no longer be of use to him. Snapped in half, only the dragon heartstring barely holding the two sides together.

He had sighed, placed the wand in his pocket, and then given the scraps of metal a good kick, loudly lamenting the fact he would probably never find out now exactly how he got where he was. Much less what role the creature had had in his transportation.

He was ashamed to say he had screamed quite loudly when the ghost of said creature had immediately appeared beside him.

After quite a few assurances that the apparition was, indeed, the spirit of whatever Harry had just slain, before he cautiously began to question it. It wasn’t long before he was doing his best impression of Hermione, wringing every possible bit of information he could out of it.

That the legends about him had lasted for thousands of years had come as quite a shock. That alien races were willing to bend the rules of time itself to get their hands on him had left him speechless. It was only when he heard the Vex rendition of his final stand against the forces of Voldemort that he had been able to put two and two together and realize exactly what had gone wrong in their plan.

In what he supposed was his original timeline, he had left the Resurrection Stone behind in the Forbidden Forest. He had not had it on him when he disarmed Riddle, and thus had never possessed all three Hallows at the same time. It turned out the title “Master of Death” actually did have some meaning to it. Apparently, the moment the Elder Wand had slammed into his palm, his very existence had broken causality, leaving his timeline in shatters. He existed, now and forever, the same as he always had and always would.

The Vex plan had originally planned to retrieve him from the end of his timeline, or at least after their last recorded account of him. Their intention method was to be somewhat stealthy: snatching famous magic, or to them, Light wielders before their recorded deaths, and then experimenting on them to determine just what produced a natural connection to the Light, i. e. Magic. He had merely been lucky (or unlucky) enough to be their first target.

When he had inquired as to exactly _how_ he had been taken, the answer had horrified him. Apparently, the sand used in Time Turners was the Sands of Time itself…and it was all that remained of Atlantis, the mysterious landmass that had fallen into the sea. Only it hadn’t been drowned: it had been erased from existence. Atlantis had been home to the entrance to the Vault of Glass for some time, and quite a few peoples had made it their home…right up until the Vault’s entrance moved, erasing the island and all those on it from reality itself.

The so-called Sands of Time that had been left behind were part of the Vault itself, and wherever they went, so to did their connection to the Vex network. Whenever someone used a Time Turner to travel to the past, they were literally plugging themselves for a brief moment into the entirety of the Vex collective. And once the Vex were connected to something, they were connected forever.

Harry was now quite convinced he had been more lucky than not. He was sure that after taking him, the next two people on the Vex lists would probably have been Hermione and Dumbledore, and he knew for a fact that both of them had dealt with Time Turners before. If the Vex had been able to plumb the minds of the two smartest magicals Harry knew…the thought did not bear repeating.

After all these revelations, Harry’s mind was under threat of implosion. So, he did his best to occupy it with another distracting task: namely, searching for the Elder Wand. It was only once he realized he was missing the other two Hallows as well that he began to suspect something more than mere misplacement.

Remembering his previous display of wandless magic, he had held out his hand as if a wand were in it, and then made the motions for a Stunner. A beam of red light had shot out of his palm, streaking away into infinity. So; the Death-stick had advanced his wandless abilities. Considering the Resurrection Stone had been able to summon a spirit with merely a verbal request, it seemed that too had given him an upgrade. But what about his Cloak?

What about his Cloak indeed?

Complete invisibility on demand, for one thing. For another, a form of Occlumency Harry had never heard of before. Instead of walls in his mind, with defenses and fake memories, it was as if his mind did not exist at all. Covered by the Cloak itself. And for a third, while under the effects of the invisibility, his spells became utterly colorless to anyone but him (the Cyclops’ ghost had confirmed _that_ particular tidbit).

After practicing his new abilities for awhile (all except the summoning), he had decided enough was enough. If this place was connected to all possible realities, then by George (and Fred) he was gonna find his way back to his own. And the sooner he got started, the better.

He had Reparo’d both his blackthorn and holly wands (both now feeling even stronger than they had before thanks to the Death-stick), Cloaked himself, and set out to find his way home…

* * *

Many, many years later, a much older (and wiser) Harry Potter managed to do just that.

There had been just one, slight little hitch.

He had landed thirty some years in the past.

He had almost lost his breakfast when he the date on the Daily Prophet caught his eye in the Leaky Cauldron. July 1970. His parents hadn’t even started Hogwarts yet. Everyone he had known had been dead for so long that he had come to terms with it, but now, by his coming here…they may never exist at all.

In a daze, he had wandered out of the Cauldron and down the street. It was only when an advertisement for a pub selling vodka caught his eye that he decided the best course of action at the moment was to get good and drunk. Spend enough time wandering the Cosmodrome scavenging for whatever remains of the magical world you could find, and vodka becomes your best friend for life. And here it was now, ready and willing to serve once more.

He had been getting some awkward stares from the pub’s other patrons (after all, war-torn trench coats and exotic looking swords weren’t exactly passé), but it wasn’t until halfway through his first bottle that the trouble started.

Harry knew something was wrong the minute the muggles stopped looking his way. That many people, just suddenly forgetting the odd character they had been staring at seconds before…the only thing he knew of that did that were Someone Else’s Problem Fields. Ones that had been applied to the whole building.

At first, he considered Aurors. He certainly looked the part of Dark Wizard, and considering the rather tremendous amount of magical energy that had deposited him at King’s Cross that morning, they could very well be after him for the Statue of Secrecy. Then again, something that large _may_ have drawn the attention of the Department of Mysteries, and thus, the Unspeakables. And from what files Harry had dug up in the ruins of the EDZ, he had no desire to spend any time in their company _at all._

But it was when he witnessed (from his perfectly-positioned-for-escape-through-the-back-exit seat) four black cloaked figures wearing masks _enter_ said back exit, that he realized exactly what was going on.

Change the masks, change the names, in the end, it would always be the same. The blood purists seeking to dominate those stronger than them, and those like him standing in their way. Harry sighed, and put down his glass. Shame. He had hoped to get a good binge going. With nary a whisper, he disappeared from sight, creeping silently by until he was perfectly positioned behind the enemy.

It was at that moment Harry began to wonder if he really did go looking for adventure, and not the other thing.

Because this was trouble with a capital T.

And he was looking forward to every second of it.

* * *

His first Thorn shot went through the back of the leader’s head. As the body hit the floor, the man’s mask rolled away to reveal the face of one Antonin Dolohov. The man that had hurt Hermione in the Battle of the DOM.

Harry would have taken a moment of he could to reflect on just how _young_ the man looked, but unfortunately, he had other things to do. There were reasons he had gone with the Thorn instead of a normal spell: one, it didn’t leave a telltale stream of light when he wasn’t invisible, and two, it gave the other dark tossers an actual _sound_ to alert them something was wrong.

Which is what they had just done.

Instead of turning their wands on the relatively defenseless Muggles, they began whirling each and every which way, looking for what had downed their companion. Excellent; these idiots had at least some training. He hadn’t had a decent challenge in a very long time.

The three remaining wizards all saw him at the exact same second. Their spells were no further apart.

“REDUCTO!”

“EXPULSO!”

“AVADA KEDAVRA!”

The first two spells splashed against his summoned Sentinel Shield. The third, surprisingly, merely shattered it. Huh. He had been expecting it to go straight through and kill him. The effect of coming back to life from _that_ would have been a lot more theatrical. Oh, well. This would still work just fine.

Slowly, a glowing blade of Arc energy grew in his hand. Not his preferred weapon, but this was a tight environment, with possible civilian casualties. No sense going over the top.

Another barrage of spells flew at him. He deflected all three of them, with only one finding its mark. His fault for using the Killing Curse again, even after seeing it had no effect. The remaining two fighters threw up shields just in time, and then proceeded to back away towards the front door, negating his advantages in the close range and forcing him to deflect and dodge as he made his way forward. 

Okay, so maybe over the top was better. He needed these people _running._

The Arcing blade lengthened and changed into one of Solar fire. A wreath of flame cloaked his entire body, extending into a pair of wings emerging from his shoulders. With his remaining free hand, he reached over his shoulder and drew the weapon he had carried for far too many years now. Forged from the shards of Willbreaker, the sword of Oryx itself: the Dark-Drinker.

The Death Eaters froze at the sight, their shields falling as they struggled to comprehend exactly…

“What _are_ you?”

Harry threw his first Dawnblade.

**“Judgement.”**

* * *

Bellatrix could only watch as Rabastan Lestrange took a step forward. Drawing the attention of Death himself. He always had been a cocky sort of a man; had, being the operative word. For now Bellatrix was quite sure his fate had just been sealed. His body just hadn’t caught up with it yet.

Rabastan’s voice rang out. “Who are _you,_ wizard, to stand up to your betters! I will see you _dead_ for this!”

At first, the man gave no response. Then, of all things, he began to giggle. Then, to chuckle. And finally, to shriek in laughter. The hair on Bellatrix’s neck stood straight up. She had only ever heard the Lord of the Knights laugh like that; and it _never_ meant good things to anyone that heard it.

The laughter died away only long enough for the man to get one sentence out. “Lestrange, of all people, telling me I’m already dead! Never thought _he’d_ be the smartest one of the lot!”

Then it was back, and even more horrendous sounding than before. Her fellow Knights had begun to show signs they were just as uncomfortable as she was, and if they hadn’t been there Bellatrix was quite sure she would have been cowering on the ground in front of this wizard.

Rabastan, apparently, had had enough. “KNIGHTS! KILL HIM!”

An absolute _wall_ of light soared straight at the man. Bellatrix screwed her eyes shut and whimpered as she heard the spells impact. She only opened them once more when she heard the gasps of those around her.

The man was still standing, the bleeding blade from earlier somehow extending to protect his entire body. Then, it was gone, sheathed on the wizard’s back.

He cupped his hands together, and a ball of purple energy that just seemed _wrong_ grew in between them. If she had been able to see his face, or even his eyes, she would have had at least _something_ to reassure her that he was still human beneath his mask. But there was nothing. Just an unyielding black wall of indifference. And somehow she still felt as if he was looking right at her.

The man’s right hand came up, still holding the ball of energy.

“….My turn.”

And then all Hell broke loose.

* * *

Bellatrix had finally succumbed to her baser instincts and done what she should have done the minute that man, no, that _demon_ had stepped outside. She had collapsed onto the ground, curling herself up into the smallest target she could present. The only sign she was still alive was the flickering shield she was trying very hard to keep up while under the effects of extreme terror.

The only reason she wasn’t dead yet was that she had dropped the minute the demon threw his first attack: the energy ball. It had soared through the space her torso had occupied mere milliseconds ago, utterly vaporizing the group of Knights behind her. Even now, its after-effects were draining her shield, seeking to drag her to Hell to join her dead companions.

The second attack had been just as deadly. The burning sword had made a reappearance, only to be flung full speed into Rabastan’s chest. The blast he may have been able to dodge, but in the end, Death had gotten his due. Just as Bellatrix had known he would.

As the screams were cut short and the bodies fell around her, all Bellatrix could notice was that a small piece of rock on the ground had run a hole in her stocking. Annoying, that. Oh well. It wasn’t the rest of her wasn’t going to look much better after this. And she was sure they could still fix her up very nicely for the funeral. Unlike the poor sods that had just been _vanished_

Rodolphus Lestrange collapsed on his knees next to her, his right arm completely gone. It was only when she heard the footsteps coming their way that she realized that they were the last. The last of a group once over twenty strong, reduced now to just two. And soon to be none.

The footsteps stopped directly in front of Rodolphus. Bellatrix could just see the man’s shoes, no, boots, now covered in ash. An urge to retch welled up insider her when she realized exactly what that ash was made of.

Rodolphus for his part met his end very nobly. He spat on the man’s boots, a great gob of blood with a tooth in it. “Go to Hell, devil.”

The man sighed. “Dolphy, Dolphy, Dolphy. Haven’t you heard? Hell is empty...”

A wet _shlunk_ came above her line of sight.

“…And all the devils are here.”

Another wet-sounding noise (presumably the man’s blade being removed from Rodolphus’ chest), and the body of the man she had been betrothed to slumped lifelessly to the ground.

“Well, well, well.”

Bellatrix involuntarily tensed.

“What have we here?”

A small whimper found its way past her lips.

The man knelt down, and that horrid, dark, _empty,_ mask filled her view. “Is it ickle little Bella-kins? It is!”

She held back a sob. She was going to die, she was going to die, she was going to die…

“Oh don’t be ridiculous. You’re not worth the trouble. Waste of a bullet, and I’d hate to have to clean your blood off my sword. Yech. No, for you, I think, something different.”

The mask vanished, and she found herself staring into the deepest green pair of eyes she had ever seen. A brief motion, and the man was standing once more. She dared a small change in position to see exactly what he was doing. Her eyes opened wide as they were met with an unexplainable sight. A glowing, transparent, blood-red book was floating in the demon’s hands. Around his now unhooded head danced a circle of runes she had _never_ seen before. Somehow, she doubted anyone else had either. Then, the book closed with a snap, and the man’s fingers along with it. “Eureka!”

He knelt once more and retrieved an abject from inside Rodolphus’ coat. She recognized it; the emergency Portkey, designed to take the group back their meeting place should the Aurors show up earlier than expected. He turned to face her; all traces of emotion completely gone from his face. She shuddered as she realized she preferred the mask.

“Now, seeing as I’m in a particularly vindictive mood, I’ve decided that your punishment’ll be given to you by the one man who you were probably quite anxious to please. And just to ensure that things are equally uncomfortable for the both of you, give old Tom Riddle this message for me: the only reason I ever let you see my face is because no matter how hard you look, how far you go, and how deep you dig, you will never be able to match a name to it. Know that your enemy knows you, and that you know _nothing_ of him. Except what he is. What _I_ am. And what I am… **is** … **ZARATHOS.”**

His pupils disappeared for a brief second, replaced by a symbol Bellatrix could not place.

“Oh, and one last thing. The Book of Joel. Chapter Three, Verses Nine through Twelve. Read it. I’m sure you’ll get quite the kick out of it. Now, on your way, ickle Bella-kins. And give Tom Riddle my regards.”

There was a hooking sensation behind her navel, and Bellatrix was whirled away, the image of a pair of flaming green eyes burned forever into her brain.


	2. ...If You Can't Be Childish Now And Then?

I own nothing. Least of all this.

2)…IF YOU CAN’T BE CHILDISH NOW AND THEN?

Harry sat and waited.

The SEP fields had fallen the minute the emergency Portkey had activated; good to know Tom was still following the same procedures, even back then. Or now, depending on how you looked at it.

At first, Harry had been tempted to sit out in the open just to see what sort of reaction he could provoke from the Aurors. But as much as he enjoyed pushing Ministry stooges’ buttons, he really needed to tread carefully here. The bloodbath that would certainly result from some less than enlightened individual attempting to drag him back to the DMLE wouldn’t win him any favors from the Ministry, and the less enemies he made for himself the better. Tom Riddle was more than enough for anyone, even the Master of Death. If actual, legitimate authority were to be leveled against him in addition to Tom’s efforts, there was a very good chance he would lose the war. True, he couldn’t exactly be killed, but he could certainly be captured and held indefinitely. And the Unspeakables would probably _love_ to get their hands on him for their experiments.

All of which meant he was currently not only invisible, but silenced, scentless, and generally hidden from practically any forms of detection, Magical or not, as he awaited the responding Aurors.

Huh. Only two of them. Either these were two of the Ministry’s best, or they had vastly underrated the actual damage done here.

The minute the first of the pair removed his hood, Harry knew he had been correct on the first count. And when the second followed suit, he knew he had been right on the second as well.

* * *

Bellatrix hit the floor with a hard thud. This…this wasn’t the meeting place. This looked to be…a Manor. The home of a pureblood Lord.

She tensed instinctively when she realized exactly which Lord it probably belonged to.

A moment later and she was grateful for her reaction. A boot caught her in the ribs and sent her spinning across the floor, crashing into a chair. It would have hurt much worse if her muscles hadn’t already been taut.

“Foolish girl! What have you done? Where are the others?!”

“Dead,” she gasped. “All dead.”

A scoff. “Impossible! The Aurors would never…”

“It wasn’t the bloody Aurors!” she hissed. “It was someone else; some- _thing_ else. And he slaughtered them. _All_ of them.”

A hand grabbed her hair and yanked her head backwards, forcing her to stare into her assailant’s face. Yaxley, one of the Lord’s lieutenants, and a member of his Inner Circle. “How is it then that _you_ alone escaped?”

“He…he sent me back…with a message. A message for…for Tom Riddle.”

Yaxley’s grip tightened in rage. “WHAT? He dares…! Tell me the message! NOW!”

She swallowed. “He…he wore a mask…blacker than anything I’ve ever seen before. Once they were all dead…he took it off, and just… _stared_ …right at me. He said…he said the only reason he let me…let Tom Riddle see his face was that…no matter how hard he looked; he would never be able to match a name to it. That he knew all there was to know about Tom Riddle, and that Riddle would learn _nothing_ of him. Except…who he was.” Her voice trailed off.

A yank brought her back to reality. “Well? WHO IS HE?!”

“He called himself…Zarathos.”

Yaxley pondered the name. Foreign, obviously. It sounded like the name a Malfoy would bear; or perhaps a Zabini. He would speak with Abraxas later, subtly, of course. The man was not yet fully committed to their cause, and his Lord’s secrets could not be divulged to just anyone. But first, there was the matter of the girl.

The only reason he had yet to haul her before his Lord was her last name: Black. If their Lord were to harm her in his rage, their relationship with the entire Black family would be severely damaged. Something they absolutely could not afford. He would take matters into his own hands.

He released his grip on her hair. “Rise. You will provide a copy of your memory for the Pensieve in that corner of the room. Once you have done that, you shall leave immediately. Do not return. Our Lord shall decide your fate.”

Slowly, she struggled to her feet, and made her way to the indicated corner. One removed silver string of memory later, and she was headed for the door. Halfway there, she stopped, and made one final statement. “Your Lord, he may be. But after today…I would not be so assured of his position over the Black family. Good day, Mister Yaxley.”

Yaxley had to resist the urge to curse her in the back. Do that, and her family would wreak a terrible vengeance upon them all. Anyone with any amount of sense in the wizarding world knew at least one truth: never cross a Black.

He could only hope that his Lord was as aware of that as he was.

* * *

Alastor Moody scratched his chin.

He was ninety percent sure there was something wrong with the Ministry’s detection systems (then again, when wasn’t there). This was supposed to have been an open and shut case of too many wards and notice-me-nots in a Muggle neighborhood, and yet even from here he could see the Leaky Cauldron just down the road. He would have written it off as just another wizard as paranoid as he was, if it weren’t for the absolute destruction he was standing in the center of.

Evidence of Blasting, Cutting, and Banishing Curses abounded, with what looked to be traces of Fiendfyre on some of the bodies. A wizard that could control _that_ as well as they evidently had was not someone to trifle with. Add to that the fact that they had somehow managed to hide this much Dark Magic from the Ministry, and Alastor was beginning to get very nervous indeed.

“DAWLISH!” he bellowed. “Get the Obliviators. We got Muggles who’ve seen more than they should’ve, even with the SEP’s. I’ll replace the wards and keep things under control ‘til you get back.”

Junior Auror John Dawlish huffed. “Sir, its against Ministry regulations for…”

“I know the blasted regs, Dawlish, but we got some pretty important people dead here, and I’d say quite a few more vaporized. The book goes out the window at times like these.”

Dawlish took one look at the body of Rodolphus Lestrange and promptly turned green. “Right, Yes, sir. Right away. Obliviators…”

And he stumbled away in the direction of the Cauldron. Alastor didn’t blame him. A shot of Firewhiskey would be mighty welcome right about now.

“Quite a mess, wouldn’t you say.”

Alastor whirled, trying to pinpoint the voice. His magical eye rotated in its socket, looking for any sign of concealment charms or spells.

“I wouldn’t bother if I were you. I am well aware of exactly how to hide from that marvelous optic of yours, Mad-Eye. Relax. If I were going to kill you, you’d be dead by now. You and that trollop of a partner of yours. All I want is a chance to explain what you’re standing in without drawing too much attention to myself.”

Moody continued looking anyway. “I suppose that makes you the one responsible for said mess.”

The disembodied voice scoffed. “Hardly. All I did was buy a drink. It was these tossers that so rudely decided to interrupt my quality time.”

“And I’m just supposed to take your word for that?”

“Check their wands. I believe you’ll find several Unforgivables as the last spells cast. Even if I had started this altercation, I think you’ll agree there’s no need to escalate to those extremes on account of just one man.”

The voice paused. “Unless your name happens to be Albus Dumbledore, of course.”

Moody finally gave up his search. “Fair point, lad. But seeing as how you’re the only one left standing after this little escapade, I’d go so far to say as your name might just warrant the same approach. Speaking of, what exactly _is_ your name son?”

“What, you expect me to hand the Ministry the name of the man that put down so many of their precious up-and-coming pureblood heirs? No thank you, I like my head where it is.”

Moody snorted. “Sensible. Still, got to have a name for the report. Can I get one?”

The voice was silent for a good while. “…Might as well. I’ll give you the same one I gave them: Zarathos.”

“Fancy. Italian?”

“Do I look Italian to you?”

“You don’t look like _anything_ at the moment, lad.”

“…Touché.”

“Now. To continue with the report. Open and shut self-defense, I assume?”

“Not exactly. More like defense of the Muggles in that pub who did nothing more than want the same thing I did: a drink.”

Moody frowned at that. “So…what you’re saying is…that this was…”

“An initiation into a little club that I’m sure has already caused the DMLE quite a lot of grief, even if you didn’t know it.”

“…You’re talking about a rise in Muggle-baiting, hushed up and buried by some pretty powerful people.”

“No, Mad-Eye, I’m talking about a methodically planned out war, followed by genocide on an unprecedented scale.”

The air suddenly seemed very cold. “Another Grindelwald?”

“Worse. So much worse. And there’s nothing you or the Ministry can do to fight him. Your only hope is Dumbledore, and that’s a very thin hope.”

“Thinner than you know, lad. Which is why, if you’re telling the truth, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’ll make my report, and do my best to leave you out of it. I’ll weave and bob some cock-and-bull story about deflecting these tossers’ fire back at ‘em, and that you only managed to survive by dodging cause you used to play Seeker in Quidditch or some such crap.”

“…Ironically enough, I _did_ play Seeker once. But that was quite a while ago, now.”

A sigh. “I appreciate the gesture, Mad-Eye. The least I can do is return it.”

A shimmer in the air. Then, with nary a sound, a figure appeared in front of Moody. It was all he could do not to cower back in fear. Now _this…_ this was an Arch-Mage. Moody could practically feel the magic rolling off him. His appearance spoke of wars fought long-ago in far off parts of the world; bones strapped to various parts of his armor, and stains on his robes that could only be blood. But it was the eyes that really did the trick.

Moody was no stranger to the thousand-yard stare, but this one felt less like one of a thousand-yards and more like one of a thousand- _year­s_. The cycle of Life and Death seemed to dance for eternity in those Killing Curse-green eyes.

“You think this is bad, you should see the mask that goes with it.”

Moody’s throat was completely dry, and yet he swallowed. “Any worse than the ones those bodies’re wearing?”

“So I’m told. See you round, Mad-Eye. Oh, I almost forgot. If you need help convincing Dumbledore, tell him this: the Book of Joel. Chapter Three, Verses Nine through Twelve. He’ll understand when he reads it.”

And with that, a bolt of lighting struck the figure, blinding both of Moody’s eyes. When his vision cleared, the wizard was gone, leaving only a smoking bit of pavement behind.

Moody sighed and turned away. “Show-off.”

The pops of Apparition heralded the arrival of the Obliviators, as well as the return of his wayward partner. Hopefully, they would be able to tell him more than he already knew. And once they were done, he would do his best to ensure they told no one else.

After all, no one ever expects you to Obliviate the Obliviator.

* * *

Bellatrix stumbled as her feet hit the ground. Apparition while coming down from an adrenaline high had never been easy for her; it was just another reason she preferred to always be in the thick of things.

Well, she had certainly been in it today. And her continued existence through it all had been due more to an inconvenience on the enemy’s part than it had to any skill of her own. And people, _powerful_ people like this…Zarathos had been…like he was…to have him for an enemy was the surest of death sentences.

But to have him on her side…her mind was already whirling with the possibilities. She had known that to truly get anywhere in their society, she would have been forced to back a Lord sooner or later. Whether by marriage or other means. The Lord of the Knights had been a chance to gain the backing she needed, without the commitment of anything as drastic of marriage, leaving her free to choose her own husband from among his followers. Rodolphus had seemed to check all the right boxes, but now…

She swallowed. Rodolphus was dead. Executed, without mercy. And the Lord of the Knights himself could not have done it more elegantly.

A dry voice drew her from her ruminations. “I take it then that your little… _excursion…_ was satisfactory?”

She nodded in a daze. “Oh yes. Quite satisfactory. I learned quite a lot.”

Her father, Cygnus Black, leaned back in his chair and lowered his eyes once more to his paper. “I’ll just bet you did.”

She continued, paying him no mind. Probably the shock setting in, but right now she had no inclination of fighting it. “Quite a lot, indeed. For one, I learned that it is never a good idea to insult a demon. I learned that there are depths to magic not even the Dark Lord has touched. And perhaps most important of all, I learned that our generation of pureblood heirs is no more than a collection of kites dancing in a hurricane. Little scraps of paper, to be torn apart by the strongest wind that blows.”

Her father’s paper had dropped when she relayed her first lesson. It had been forgotten entirely by the second. And by the third, it, her father’s chair, and in fact the entre room could have been on fire for all the lack of attention her father was giving it. His voice had lost its dry quality, and was now threatening to shake if he spoke any less carefully. “Daughter. What. _Happened_.”

She hummed. “Hmm? Oh, _he_ did. Just like a hurricane, actually. I wonder if that’s what his name means? It is a _very_ nice name.”

 _“Bellatrix”._ He hissed.

“The first four he set aflame. A burning sword, probably Fiendfyre judging by the shape. Rabastan insulted him then. It was the last thing he did. The rest….gone.” Her hands made a cloud shape. “Poof. Gone. Vaporized. Twenty of the best and brightest of our age…snuffed out in an instant. Poor Jugson. His coffin’s going to be awfully light.”

 _“Who?_ Bellatrix, _who?”_

“Oh, he called himself Zarathos. I don’t think it’s his real name, though. A pity. I wouldn’t have minded hearing it more often.”

Cygnus Black was a very practical man. He had seen the coming darkness, and knew there were none currently who could stand against it. Not even Dumbledore. So, he had laced his bets and insured that for his part, his family would stand with the victors. But for one man, no matter how strong, to stand against that many wands, _and win…_ perhaps it was time to lace his bets in the opposite direction as well. That is, if this unknown powerhouse actually was of the Light. The efficiency with which he had dispatched his foes cast grave doubts on that particular fact.

He needed more information. “Daughter. I wish to see. To see it _all.”_

“Of course, Father. The Knights already have, so it would be only right.”

“….What do you mean the Knights have already seen it?”

“Oh, don’t worry Father. I’ll include that part as well.”

He harrumphed. He would have preferred to be the first (and only) with this information, but at least now he could see what the Knights’ reactions had been. Context could do wonders for one’s decision-making abilities.

He gestured to the room just off of the study in which resided the family Pensieve. “After you, my dear.”

* * *

Albus Dumbledore frowned as his Floo lit with green flame. There weren’t that many people with direct access to the Hogwarts Headmaster’s office, and of those, the only one that would ever interrupt him during his punctual mealtimes would be…

Alastor Moody stepped from the fireplace. “Constant vigilance, Albus! Here you are, sitting behind your desk, with a sandwich in one hand and pumpkin juice in the other. Anyone could have taken you out from here before you even drew your wand!”

Dumbledore sighed. “I would rather hope that the wards of Hogwarts offered better security than that, Alastor.”

“You and me both, Albus! But it can’t hurt to be too careful! Especially nowadays!”

Dumbledore gave a sideways look at the old Auror for that remark. At first glance, it just seemed to be the classic Moody paranoia raising its head, but after realizing Alastor looked like the cat that had gotten the canary, Dumbledore rather suspected it was something a bit more than that. He resisted the urge to sigh. It had been such a nice lunch, too.

“Very well, Alastor. I’ll bite. What could possibly be so dangerous about ‘nowadays’?”

_THUNK!_

A pile of paper over three feet high appeared on the desk in front of him. He glared around it at the one who had been audacious enough to drop it directly on his place. “And what is this?”

Alastor dropped into the seat by the fire. “DMLE case files. Going back over a year. Each and every one slated for destruction, twelve months from the date, closed or not. Go on; see for yourself. Not even I believed it at first, and I had it glaringly pointed out to me.”

With yet another sigh, Dumbledore picked up the first document. A frown creased his face. He flipped to the next one. The frown deepened. Another. Then another. And still another. On and on and on and on…

“…All of them?”

“Aye. Each and every one. All buried in the best possible way: anonymity.”

“…And when you said this was glaringly pointed out to you, I presume you meant you were a witness to one of these…incidents?”

“Nah! Just the aftermath, and even that was enough to shake me!”

“…What happened, Alastor.”

“Blighters picked the wrong target, that’s what happened. Bad luck they chose a Muggle pub that just so happened to have a wizard for a customer at the time.”

“I see. And he managed to escape and alert the Aurors?”

“Alert! Albus, the only alerting that happened came well after it was all over and done. There were twenty of them; all lined up as pretty as you please, like one of the Nazi’s firing lines. Four to drive the Muggles out, the rest to do the executing.”

“…I must admit to some confusion, Alastor. If you were not alerted until after things were over, and there was only one wizard in the area, how could it possibly have been bad luck for these…individuals?”

“Cause he took care of it himself, Albus! All twenty of those tossers, put down like the dogs they were. I never even _heard_ of some of the effects I saw on the bodies.”

“…And I suppose you wish for me to do something about the parents of the dead who will no doubt be looking for some form of retribution, legal or otherwise?”

“Albus, that’s the _last_ thing you should do. Fellow made things easy for me by leaving only five actual bodies for identification, well-within my abilities to bury the same way these other cases have been.”

“…It is impossible to Vanish human remains, Alastor.”

“Impossible, maybe, but the cheeky blighter went and did it anyway. I can only assume he chose those specific five to send a message to a particular group of those…”

“Alastor.”

“Fine. Those upstanding members of our society. There, happy?”

“Not in the slightest. Twenty people have been murdered, Alastor. And you have let the culprit walk free and buried the case. Tell me, how are you different than all those responsible for these papers on my desk?”

“Seriously? For one, I’m not burying it. I’m just being a might…selective…in who hears about it. And two…you know as well as I do that this was self-defense. Murder is for murderers, Albus. Not soldiers. Not warriors. And I can assure you, that is exactly the kind of person we are dealing with.”

“…I cannot say I agree. But can I assume you were able to converse with said person?”

“In a manner of speaking. Fella laid it out real plain for me exactly what was going on, and more importantly, _who_ had been doing it. Those files are all we need to start making things right uncomfortable for certain people.”

“We? Not the Ministry?”

“Think about it, Albus.”

“…Oh.”

“Oh. That’s all he says. Oh. We got bribery, extortion, and blackmail coming out of our ears, and all he can say is, oh.”

“What would you have me say, Alastor?”

“The Muggles have a saying, Albus. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Be the soft speaker. Work in the background. Use this intel. And let me make sure the big stick is aimed in the right direction.”

“Or?”

“Or said stick may very well swing back and give _you_ the black eye.”

“…Noted.”

Alastor hauled himself up, and turned to the fireplace.

“One last thing, Alastor. This…stick…I don’t suppose he happened to tell you his name?”

Moody paused. If the Arch-Mage had given his real name, he would never have dreamed of telling to Albus, but seeing as how it was clearly a fake one…

“…Zarathos. That’s what he called himself. Got no idea what it means, but I can guess. And the only reason I’m telling you is because he gave me a message to pass on. Something else to read, methinks.”

“Yes?”

“The Book of Joel. Chapter Three, Verses Nine through Twelve. I would advise you to take whatever advice he’s just given you to heart. East wind is coming, Albus. We must weather it, or crack.”

“Sherlock Holmes. From ‘His Last Bow’, if I’m not mistaken.”

Moody grinned. “Why not? Even the Muggles can see when a storm is brewing. Some even better than we. And besides…”

Moody vanished in a plume of green flame, his last words trailing behind.

“…I’ve always loved a good mystery.”

Dumbledore snorted. ‘A’ mystery. This whole business was nothing _but_ mysteries. One, however, he could solve from the comfort of his own office.

Slowly, he ran his eyes over the bulging bookcases. “Now, where did I put that original King James printing…”

* * *

The monster once known as Tom Riddle shrieked in rage.

“WHO! WHO IS THIS…THIS…”

“Upstart?” Yaxley helpfully suggested.

He received a Crucio for his efforts.

“Tell me, _Yaxley…_ who else knows of the failure today?”

His voice shook from the after-effects of the curse. “Just…the Blacks…my Lord. It was they…who supplied…the memory.”

Another shriek. “THE _BLACKS?!_ Do you know how long I have courted their family?! How many proxies and intermediaries I have used? And in one day, a single wizard has undone _years_ of effort! _My_ effort!”

Yaxley, wisely, said nothing.

Voldemort began to pace, determined to salvage at least _something_ from the day’s events. “You say only the Blacks know. And they will not tell, not until it becomes absolutely necessary. They have not survived this long by being hasty. That this…Zarathos…left no survivors plays into our hands. We can merely suggest that the dead are all out on important, secret assignments. Ones known only to me. And if the truth should out, we can use the existence of no witnesses to stress the blood-thirstiness of the Muggle filth.”

“But my Lord…”

“SILENCE! This is _my_ time, Yaxley, not his, not Dumbledore’s, _not anyone else’s_. I will not give this Zarathos the honor of being deemed a worthy opponent for me. _You_ shall deal with him. Personally. Take as many men as you need, but do not tell them what you are dealing with. He is no more than a nameless obstacle to be crushed, and that is all.”

Yaxley swallowed. “And… what will you do, my Lord?”

“I? A great many things, Yaxley. Repair my relationship with the Blacks. Determine the origins of this Zarathos. And finally…locate this Book of Joel. Perhaps there may be other useful information I can gleam from it.”

“I believe the Book of Joel is part of a larger set of Muggle works, my Lord. A collection of histories, laws, but most of all, of wars. Both Muggle and Magical. As told from the perspective of the Muggles that survived…and of those who conquered.”

“Hmm. Further proof of the Muggle desire for conflict. A useful tool, indeed. Go, Yaxley. And do not return, unless successful. You will not like the outcome.”

With a nervous bow, Yaxley swiftly made his way out. As he did so, Voldemort’s thoughts turned toward a collection of Muggle books he had collected long ago, and then secreted away from even the most trustworthy of his followers.

Oh, he had known what the Book of Joel was immediately. One didn’t grow up in an orphanage without hearing a sermon at least once a week, after all. And while certainly out of place here, the Muggle Bible held a great many truths that Voldemort had been able to twist to suit his own purposes. The greatest lies always have some grain of truth to them, after all.

From the Bible, he had moved onto the works of men like Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Nietzsche. All of which had proven themselves time and again in his campaign. But now, it was to the Bible that he once more turned his attention. One more truth to be plucked from its pages.

Three passwords, a blood-tester, and countless wards and traps later, he stood amidst his collection. He ran his fingers down the spines, searching…

* * *

Dumbledore’s hand stopped. “Ah! Here it is. Bit dusty; but still in good shape.”

He removed the volume from the shelf, flipped it open to the correct passage, and began to read…

* * *

Voldemort’s voice echoed throughout the stone chamber. “Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up…”

* * *

“Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.”

* * *

“Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord.”

* * *

“Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat: for there I will sit…”

* * *

“…to judge all the heathen…”

* * *

“…round about.”

Voldemort’s eyes narrowed. This…this was a challenge. But it was also…a clue. It told him that either this Zarathos was at least part-Muggle…or he had been around when these lines were written.

He thought back to the man’s retort to Rabastan. If the man were undead…or worse, immortal…

He snapped the book shut. Ridiculous. There were only three immortals alive; himself, and those accursed Flamels. It was incredulous that another should emerge from anonymity solely to face him.

Impossible.

But nonetheless, for a brief moment, the monster once known as Tom Riddle shivered in fear.


	3. Why Is A Mouse When It Spins?

I own nothing. Least of all this.

3) WHY IS A MOUSE WHEN IT SPINS?

Cygnus Black reeled back in shock. Never, in all his years of life, would he have expected _that._ That a Yaxley would ever _dare_ to harm a Black, a family so far above their own it was laughable…it spoke volumes to the true attitude of the Knights. And to that of their leader. True, the fight (if it could be called that) held its own revelations about the true state of their society, but to a politician like Cygnus, it was the scene that came after the massacre that contained the most damning evidence.

His daughter’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. “Well Father? What do you think? Of them…and of _him?”_

Hmm. How best to put this.

He began slowly. “…I must confess, the first thing that I thought…the first thing I truly noticed was…that this Zarathos was, without a doubt, a Potter.”

Bellatrix blinked. “A Potter? You’re sure?”

He nodded. “No question about it. The hair of a Potter is very distinctive, and it will always be so. At least until a certain curse I know if is lifted. But it was his eyes that told me something much more important. Tell me, Bella. Have you ever seen a Potter with eyes like that?”

She shook her head.

“I thought not. Green eyes are a rarity among wizarding bloodlines, which leads me to believe that this Zarathos is, in all probability…a half-blood.”

The words he had been reluctant to voice aloud visually seemed to sink into her mind. “A half-blood. Perhaps a bastard. It would explain why we have yet to hear of him, as well as why he gave himself another name. It could be his family doesn’t even know he exists; the Potters tend not to turn their backs on their own, and they would most assuredly have sent him to Hogwarts if he had been raised by them. No wand that I could see, so either self-taught or more likely trained in a different school of magic for more…advanced students. All of which means…”

He finished her thought. “…That a half-blood has somehow managed to unearth secrets of magic we would never have dreamed of today, and what’s more, learned to use them to great effect with both deadly force and precision. Imagine what he could have done, how much better he could have been, with an actual wand.”

Her murmur seemed to echo throughout the room. “I wouldn’t have survived.”

“No, Bellatrix. He would have let you live anyway; I think. For one very important reason: you were the only one I saw in that memory that didn’t attack him. And you were able to dodge his first onslaught, as well as shield from any further ones. He obviously knew you, or knew of you. Perhaps it was his version of a test; not just of your abilities, but of your…loyalties.”

Her face turned up in confusion. “But he said…”

“I know what he said, my dear. But by giving you that message to take to this…Tom Riddle, a man presumably high up in the ranks of the Knights, if not responsible for this entire war…he has deliberately placed you into their line of fire. And their response has forced you to re-evaluate your choices. And,” he sighed, “for me to re-evaluate mine as well.”

He was silent, lost in thought, for some time.

Finally, he stirred once more. “I shall get your Uncle Orion to call a meeting of the House. Of all of us. Perhaps it may be for the best if we were to…withdraw from the coming conflict. And, after all, more can be done from the shadows of neutrality than it can from open war.”

Bellatrix’s eyes shone. “And if I can draw _him_ to our side…our position with both the Light and the Dark would be much improved.”

Cygnus snorted. “Our side, my dear? I think what you mean is _yours_.”

Her right eyebrow arched imperiously. “Is it not the same, with the House of Black?”

He laughed. “Well-spoken, daughter. Well-spoken. But in order to entice him to… _our_ side, first, we must find him. And if anyone can do that, it would be the Potters. I believe it is time to meet with your Uncle Charlus. His reaction to learning there is yet another Potter capable of causing a massive uproar within the wizarding world is _not_ one I am looking forward to.”

* * *

Ironically, this was the first time Harry Potter had ever been able to sit on a swing-set.

There hadn’t really been that many playgrounds in the Last City, and when your cousin growing up is one Dudley Dursley, you don’t have time to do much sitting at all. Thousand years later, and Harry was just now discovering the peaceful effects of simple, solo, back-and-forth motion. Shame it wouldn’t last long.

At first, he had considered a campaign waged from the shadows. Guerilla warfare, as the Muggles had done in places like Vietnam, or like the Eliksni had done in the Cosmodrome. But at the end of the day, he was a Gryffindor first, and a Guardian second. He had already made a statement to the Wizarding World as a whole, even if most of them would never know of it. Now, it was time to underline that statement.

He stretched, and leaned sideways on one of the swing’s chains. To think, he had been to other planets, other _dimensions,_ and there were still things back here on Earth he had yet to see. When he had begun his quest to return here, all those years ago, he had never even considered what he would do once he actually got back. What his purpose would be afterwards. It had been another who had forced him to sit down and look at it from a logical perspective. His brother in all but name.

When he had finally stumbled out of the Vault of Glass into the lush ruins of the Ishtar Sink, the first thing he had noticed was that there was _definitely_ something wrong with the Sun. He had interrogated the ghost of the…Cyclops, Mind, whatever…quite thoroughly about what the world looked like now, but the one thing he had forgotten to ask was exactly _where_ the exit to the Vault let out. Funny, that. He had just assumed that it would naturally be somewhere on Earth, considering it was where the Vex had snatched him from. But no, that’s not how Harry Potter’s luck worked. Instead, he had been stuck on the _frickin’ planet VENUS,_ with absolutely _no_ clue how to get back home. So, he had immediately done the first thing that came to mind.

He tried to walk back into the Vault.

Imagine his surprise to learn it had been quite thoroughly locked behind him.

Imagine his further surprise to learn there were quite a lot more things that looked a lot like that Cyclops had, and they were all most anxious to keep him from getting back in.

Ever.

Five times he died and came back before he was finally able to outrun the platinum blighters. He had just been considering sneaking back under invisibility when yet another mechanical being decided to appear right in front of him. He had been so startled that he had immediately cast a Stupefy at it, only for the brilliant bolt of red light to have absolutely _no effect whatsoever._

The being had then proceeded to dismantle him bit by bit in an exceedingly efficient and painful manner (most of his skills in torture of organic beings were derived from his experiences that day). When at last she (no doubt about _that_ particular detail) had finally let him die, he had come back to life royally pissed off, and had expressed his frustration the only way he knew how: with copious amounts of violence.

When at last the dust settled, Venus had gained yet another crater of spectacular size, and Harry Potter was able to count the Exo Stranger as one of his closest friends. After all, what else were you supposed to call a person who just handed you a free ship, rifle, sparrow, and clothes?

She had explained quite thoroughly that something like him had no business existing in this timeline, and that any effort he put forth to returning to his appropriate time she would gladly assist. When he had inquired as to exactly _how_ she knew what he was, she had merely replied that she didn’t have the time to explain. And then rudely disappeared right in front of him.

His response had been very mature: he had flipped a certain finger at the place she had been standing, and then boarded his (relatively) brand-new ship for the trip to Earth. First things first: he needed to find out what exactly the Deathly Hallows had done to him…and if there was any way to reverse it. And when it came to wizarding lore, there was no better source of information than Hogwarts’ library.

Only Hogwarts wasn’t there anymore.

Oh, the building itself was still standing. Hogsmeade too, for that matter. But as far as anything or anyone magical? Nothing. Not a sight, not a sound, not a scrap left. All empty. And from the looks of things, it had been so for some time. Even Harry could sense that if there was anything magical about this place, the effect had long since dissipated. True, it had been a couple of thousand years, and there had been one or two apocalypses (or so he had been told), but somehow, the odds of…everything, just…ending, hadn’t really hit him until then.

After a good deal of poking around, he had reluctantly turned to the one place he had been hesitant to go: the Chamber of Secrets. A dead Basilisk could still kill, as a certain dead Dark Lord could have attested to. And Basilisk venom could, conceivably, be used to bypass a certain locked door he was very much anxious to reopen.

But that too had apparently been subject to the ravages of time. All that remained of the great beast that he had once fought for his very life was a scattering of bones across the Chamber floor. Odd; it had almost looked like someone had deliberately stripped the skeleton for anything useful. He had gone over the remains very carefully, looking for anything that might have been of value. All that he had discovered was that the bones seemed predisposed to _whisper_ to him; Parseltongue, obviously, but still, the effect was…disconcerting. He had taken them anyway; he would bet money on there being a way to grant a horrible death using just the _skin_ of a Basilisk, much less the innards.

After reemerging from the Chamber, he had sat for quite a while and considered his options. If Hogwarts had been stripped deliberately, perhaps what it had once contained had been stored someplace else. Perhaps at the Ministry of Magic; or perhaps at one of the other wizarding schools. There was just one problem: travel south to London was, apparently, forbidden. Nuclear fallout, or some such nonsense. He snorted. As if radiation could ever kill a wizard. Hermione had explained that fact to him quite thoroughly, once upon a time. Now, he was beginning to doubt he would ever hear another lecture from his best friend.

It was on his long sparrow ride south to London he discovered yet another ability granted by the Elder Wand: he could now override Gamp’s Law at will. Treacle tart had never tasted so good.

After trying for four hours to locate a workable entrance to the Ministry (telephone booths weren’t exactly kept in the best shape, nowadays), he had finally given up and just Apparated straight down. True, the whole thing could have been collapsed under tons of rubble, but what was the worst that could’ve happened? Death? Expulsion?

All for naught. The Ministry had been just as empty as Hogwarts. Well, except for one Department.

The Veil of Death seemed just the same as it had been in fifth year. In fact, if anything, its whispers seemed to be even more insistent. Whether that was due to the bones in his pockets, or the changes in himself, he could only speculate.

In the end, there had been nothing worth staying for. He had given one last look backwards at the statue in the Atrium, sighed, and Apparated away.

Diagon Alley was more of the same, but worse. Here, there were signs of actual damage, and not just the sort that came with the passing of time. Flourish and Blotts? Crumbling. Eyelops? Demolished. Even Borgin and Burkes had lost its entire front. Blown out buildings, collapsed roofs, sinkholes in the street. Not even Ollivander’s had escaped; the one thing in the Alley age had seemed unable to touch, now reduced to rubble.

Well, that was one avenue of exploration dead. The only other one that he could see was to investigate the other wizarding schools, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. If worst came to worst, he could try America. He recalled hearing of an academy near Salem, and of a castle similar to Hogwarts called Ilvermorny. Hopefully, he could find at least _something_ in one of those places. The only problem was, he had no idea exactly where those places were.

He had always assumed that Beauxbatons was in France, and Durmstrang either somewhere in Bulgaria or Scandinavia. It made sense to start with the one closest to him, so he had pulled up his ship’s map of Europe to begin looking for possible locations, when his plans in that direction had immediately been cut short. Apparently, all travel south of London and west of something called the “European Dead Zone” was not only expressly forbidden, but monitored closely by a group called the Pilgrim’s Guard. Not good. And while he may have been able to turn himself invisible, he had absolutely no idea how to do it to either a sparrow or a ship. Disillusioned objects could still be detected, especially while moving. And seeing as how a group the ship’s computer referred to as the Fallen also had access to cloaking technology, he was positive either the Pilgrim Guard or someone else equally dangerous possessed a way to see past it. And then to blast the intruder to smithereens.

Durmstrang it was!

Scandinavia was a very big place to search, but seeing as how their delegation in his fourth year had arrived dressed for extremely cold weather, he would venture so say it was the northern half he should concentrate on. The half that was controlled almost entirely by what the ship only referred to as “Warlords”. Greaaaaaaat. Anyone that willingly put “Lord” in their title was sure to be bad news.

But nonetheless, his curiosity was aroused when he learned some of the Warlords also belonged to a group collectively known as the “Risen”: people resurrected from the dead and granted mystical powers by things known as “Ghosts”. If that wasn’t magic, then you might as well call him a codfish. And the fact that these “Risen” mostly seemed to congregate around the Ural Mountains…well, that was just adding wood to the fire.

So he had set course for Eastern Russia, and strapped himself in for a very, very long ride.

* * *

Ah, here they came. The pop of Apparition was unmistakable to anyone who had heard it even once, and an entire group doing it at once was impossible to miss.

Which meant the Anti-Apparition and Portkey wards should be going up right about…now.

Slowly he stood, and cracked his neck. At first he had intended to do this somewhere with as few bystanders as possible, but he didn’t want to give Tom any ideas for future run-ins, should they occur. And if the entirety of Privet Drive were to suffer some unfortunate collateral damage, well, what was the harm?

His radar lit up. Idiots. Disillusionment and invisibility cloaks only worked on him when their users were actually trying to be sneaky. Walking straight at your enemy was the exact opposite of subtlety. Oh, wait a mo…they were spreading out. Forming a circle around him. They had him surrounded. He rubbed his hands together. Excellent. Now he could fire in any direction.

Orrrrr…now that was an idea. If his helmet hadn’t already been lowered, he was quite sure his grin would’ve been compared to the Grinch’s. Yes, that would work _wonderfully._

One of his soon-to-be victims stepped forward, and dropped his Disillusionment. Hmm. Tom wasn’t here, then. No one else would have dared to be the center of attention if he were. So, this group was here to talk first, kill if necessary. Good. He could work with this.

The figure stopped about twenty meters from Harry, and gave a slight bow. “Zarathos, I presume.”

“Got it in one, my dear fellow. And from your voice, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you would be Yaxley?”

A nod of the mask. “Correct. And since we so obviously know each other, would it not be better if we were to have this discussion face to face? I’ll remove my mask, you remove your helmet, and then we’ll…”

“Try and kill each other like civilized people?”

Yaxley chuckled. “Something like that. Words have slain giants where violence has failed, after all.”

“And when a man puts on a mask, he reveals who he truly is. Very well, Mister Yaxley. Face to face it is.”

A flick of Harry’s hand, and both his helmet and Yaxley’s mask disappeared. Back into his storage system, of course. Convincing disguises were always handy to have.

Yaxley jerked slightly at the feel of air on his face, and then grinned. “Impressive. Most impressive. But I must admit to being somewhat attached to that visage.”

“If things proceed satisfactorily, I’ll see what I can do about reattaching it.”

“I am much obliged. Now, seeing as how this place is practically a beacon to all those marked by our Lord, and yet out in the open and unprotected, am I correct in assuming you wished to…negotiate, with the Knights of Walpurgis?”

“Oh, is that what you’re called? Hmm. Better than Death Eaters, I suppose. And to answer your question: yes, in a manner of speaking.”

“Oh?”

“It’s really quite simple: forsake your Lord, publicly decry blood-purity in any form, and I will ensure that society as a whole forgets whatever terrible acts you may have committed for your cause.”

“And how would you propose to do that?”

He smiled. “Because pretty soon they’re gonna have a whole lot bigger things to worry about.”

Yaxley considered it. “Hmm. I’m afraid I’m going to have to go with…no. Sorry, Zarathos. But you have not only slaughtered some of the best and brightest of our age, you have also cost the Knights the support of the Black family.”

Harry frowned. “How’s that?”

Yaxley snorted. “As if you didn’t know exactly what you were doing, leaving only the Black daughter alive to tell the tale. You cut down her betrothed right in front of her, and in doing so let the Blacks know in no uncertain terms what would come should they continue to ally with our cause. And to share with her the name of Tom Riddle? If our Lord had been the one awaiting her return, she would have died, and the Blacks would be as much our enemy as you. I have no doubt that by now the House of Black is scrabbling for any leverage on you as possible, hoping to sway you to their side, and to protect their neutrality. All of that, from one seeming act of mercy. Well-played, sir.”

Harry sighed, and ran his hands through his hair. Merlin, but he hated politics. He always had, ever since Osiris…but that was neither here nor there. Here, was an entire hornet’s nest he had accidentally kicked, and then somehow miraculously pointed in the right direction. Oh well. Considering the Potter luck, it was probably best to wait for the other shoe to drop before he did anything about it. Right now, there were about fifty witches and wizards standing ready around him, all intending to do him serious hurt. Might as well give peace one last shot.

“Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”

“Our Lord’s mercy would be practically nonexistent, should we betray him to you. His cause is one we support whole-heartedly, no matter the origins of one Tom Riddle. And no matter what else, I know that if we fail to kill you as our Lord has instructed, at least death by your hands will be considerably less painful than it would be coming from our Master.”

“True enough. Very well. I presume you’ll be wanting your mask back?”

“That would be much appreciated, yes.”

A flash of silver, and Yaxley’s face was once more hidden. “Ah. Much better. Now, then. Let us begin. En guarde, Zarathos.”

“Hasta la vista, Yaxley.”

The first spell flew from the Knight’s wand…and hit a spherical wall of purple light.

Harry waved from inside his Ward of Dawn. “Handy trick, this. Picked it up from a pretty tough Russian chap. But I wonder…can you bring it down before I do something a little more…violent?”

The wave of spell-fire from his attackers seemed to indicate they were more than willing to try.

Curse after curse impacted the bubble, creating an absolute maelstrom of light in the middle of the circle. On and on and on it went, until finally…

“HALT!”

Yaxley’s command stopped everyone dead in their tracks. The purple light was gone, giant craters blasted into the ground around what had once been its circumference. But in the center…nothing.

Harry Potter had vanished.

“Wards!”

One of the Knights gave a half-turn on the spot. “Still up, boss!”

“Check for Disillusionment, now!”

It was too late.

The Knight that had spoken gave a great gasp as a blade made out of the same indigo light as before skewered through his chest. A gurgle came from his throat as blood dripped out of his mouth. A flash. The body vanished.

In Harry Potter’s hands twirled a pair of spectral swords, practically screaming in their hunger for Death. “So. Less painful. Still sure about that?”

“KILL HIM!”

The blades became a shield, absorbing the hail of curses. The shield became a staff, reflecting those same curses back into their casters. The staff became a maul, burning and blazing a path through the Knights, seemingly heedless of any damage sent its way. And finally, rising into the air, the maul became a fist, crackling with lightning.

And when the fist fell…

It brought the sky with it.

* * *

Voldemort sat on his throne, awaiting the return of Yaxley and his men. Fifty Knights was more than double the amount Zarathos had faced the first time; and none of them fresh recruits, as so many of the first had been.

And yet, somehow, he was still worried.

He had dug deep to find any mention at all of a Zarathos in history, either wizarding or Muggle. The wizarding section had been complete waste of time, but the Muggle…

In Muggle literature, there were a few scattered mentions of the being, all inevitably referring to him as a “demon” or “spirit of vengeance”. There even seemed to be a group that believed he was a fallen angel, sentenced to be forever bound to the Devil as a servant…and to a mortal as a weapon. This…Ghost Rider…was an intriguing concept (perhaps he should look into creating one of his own, if only for intimidation), but while there were some similarities to the Zarathos Voldemort had seen, the differences far outweighed them.

Still, it added a great deal of credence to the belief that the man was either a half-blood of Muggleborn wizard, one who felt that his vengeance upon Tom Riddle was well deserved. Perhaps Voldemort had slaughtered his family; perhaps Tom Riddle had been his tormentor in some form, either at Hogwarts or in the orphanage. Regardless, he knew far too much to be allowed to live. For his interference with the Black family alone, he deserved a slow, painful death. Yaxley would see it done; the man had never failed him yet. A brute, he may be, but an effective one.

A single body appeared in mid-air, and then collapsed lifelessly to the floor.

…Perhaps not as effective as he had thought.

Voldemort rose, and made his way over to the corpse. Why had Zarathos seen fit to send back the body of one of the failures? If it had been him, he would have sent the man back alive, just to see him punished by his superiors. It was what Zarathos had attempted with the Black scion; why not with this one?

A gasp of breath from what he had thought a dead man seemed to answer the question for him. So, he was alive. Good. Voldemort would see he would suffer for what he had failed to accomplish.

His wand came up to summon the man’s mask off, to reveal who it was that Zarathos had sent back…

Only for the man’s head to rise into the air along with the mask.

Voldemort tuned out the wizard’s horrible screams and simply stared in appreciation. Truly, this Zarathos had just as much flair for the dramatic as he himself did. He could see it now; how on earth could he miss it? 

The man’s face had been cut clean off, and his mask…the mask had been _nailed_ into the man’s head in its place. Even the very nails seemed to reek of Dark Magic, and the more Voldemort stared at them, the more they took on the appearance of great, twisted thorns. If he had seen them from afar, he would have said the blood that ran around them was the roses on their stalks.

With a final gurgle, the man’s form went still. Voldemort sighed. He couldn’t even bring himself to be disappointed; Zarathos had tortured the man almost as well as he would have. He began to turn and call for someone to dispose of the body when a glimpse of something white caught his eye.

He summoned the object, and a crisp, paper note dropped into his hand. And written on it, in the very blood of the one who had carried it, was a message.

_YAXLEY SAID HE WAS ATTACHED TO THE MASK. IT SEEMED RIGHT TO KEEP ANYONE ELSE FROM TAKING IT AWAY FROM HIM. SORRY NOT SORRY FOR SPOILING YOUR FUN. OH, AND ONE MORE THING: SINCE YOU’LL BE GETTING TO HELL WELL BEFORE I DO, PLEASE GIVE THE DEVIL MY REGARDS. – ZARATHOS_

Voldemort began to shake in rage. Fifty Knights, some of his most well-trained fighters and assassins…

All dead.

And this…this… _demon…_ dared to rub his nose in the fact that his own violent pleasures had been denied.

The room did not survive the Dark Lord’s anger. Very few things could, after all.

But no matter how strong it grew, no matter how much destruction it wrought, there was one thing that it couldn’t quite completely kill:

His fear.


	4. Never Did Know The Answer To That One

I own nothing. Least of all this.

_A/N: In case anyone is wondering, the original inspiration for this fic comes from the amazing story “Wind Shear” by Chilord on Fanfiction.net. As much as I absolutely love that story, I always considered it a little weak in a few areas: Harry’s backstory and the mechanism for his arrival, the final battle and fate of Voldemort, the actions of a certain Headmaster…you get the idea. This started out as my attempt to…not fix, but upgrade certain elements of the story, and ended up as something almost completely different. It may not seem so at first, but things are really gonna go down the rabbit-hole soon. Spoiler warning: the Department of Mysteries is gonna be big. So, if anyone is looking for an excellent straight-up time travel Harry fic, Wind Shear is by far one of the best. Definitely check it out. With that out of the way…_

_Catch you on the flip side._

4) NEVER DID KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT ONE

Once more, the Floo in the Headmaster’s office flared to life to admit a certain gruff and grisly Auror. Only this time it was merely the head that poked through.

“Albus! Get down here; we got a situation!”

Dumbledore merely looked up placidly from his paperwork. “What is it now, Alastor?”

“That stick of ours has gone and whacked the hornet’s nest again; and this time, he didn’t bother with the wards.”

An extremely long sigh echoed throughout the room. “Very well, Alastor. I’m coming through.”

Alastor grunted, and removed his head to make way.

Less than a moment later, the opposite end of the Floo came to life with a dramatic flair as Albus Dumbledore stepped into the Department of Magical Law enforcement.

A flick of his wand, and the ash covering both the floor and his robes had Vanished. “Now; tell me what exactly has happened, Alastor. And don’t leave anything out.”

“That’s just it, Albus: I don’t know. Nobody does.”

A frown crossed Dumbledore’s face. “If nobody can say what has happened, how can you be certain it was indeed our…stick?”

“The place is practically _blazing_ with Dark Magic, Albus; and jus’ like the first time, every single body has somehow up and disappeared. No doubt about it. I just need _you_ to piece together the chain of events, seeing as how the only man left standing hasn’t seen fit to enlighten me yet.”

Yet another sigh. “And I suppose you also want me to do my best to obscure things should anyone else go poking around?”

Moody laughed. “You know me too well, ol’ friend.”

“Hmm. I will do what I can, within reason. I have no desire to draw more attention to myself than necessary. That is, if I am to continue being the ‘soft speaker’, as you put it.”

Alastor held his arm out. “Couldn’t agree with you more, Albus.”

Dumbledore took the offered hold, and with a silent crack, the two wizards Dis-Apparated.

They reappeared in the middle of what could only have been described as a warzone.

A circle of destruction ran right through what had once been a children’s playground. Trees that had stood for centuries had been ripped up, roots and all, and flung violently outwards. Metal that had been warped and melted was embedded deep into the dirt. Evidence of lightning strikes and blasting curses abounded. And in the exact center of the chaos, a ring had been blasted out of the ground; inside of it stood the only undisturbed patch of grass for a hundred meters around. Albeit sunk into the ground by about thirty feet. 

Throngs of Ministry officials were already swarming the scene; understandable, given that this was a Muggle neighborhood. But the only one that truly worried either of the two wizards was the lone figure clad in the unmistakable robes of the Unspeakables.

“I so hope you realize it is going to be extremely difficult to obscure anything with one of _them_ here, Alastor.”

Moody had the grace to look ashamed. “Sorry Albus; must’ve got here while I was Flooing you. Woulda sent you a messenger Patronus, but you know I ain’t been able to cast a corporeal one for a while. Not since…” his voice trailed off.

Albus patted his old comrade on the back. “Quite alright, Alastor. We shall just have to make do. Come; best head off any trouble before it starts.”

They began to make their way over to the hooded figure…

Only for it to disappear right in front of them, still facing in the direction of the epicenter. 

“…Or not. Hmm. Suspicious. I shall have to talk with Croaker later. Alastor, if you would be so kind as to keep the attention off of us for a while, I would be much obliged.”

Moody grunted and began weaving a web of spells, all intended for concealment or obscuring. As he did so, Dumbledore was casting spells of his own, slowly creating a tangled line of multicolored light in front of the two. Every now and then he would give either a hum or a grunt, with the occasional arched eyebrow thrown in. It was only when the line came to a radiating green end that a look of worry crossed his face.

Moody finished his casting and turned back to his partner. “Well, Albus?”

“I’m afraid, Alastor that I must admit…I am confused.”

Moody blinked. _The_ Great Albus Brian Wulfric Percival Dumbledore, admitting confusion? Impossible.

“Confused, Albus?”

“Yes. To start, there appears to have been a magical broadcast of some kind. Geared towards something Dark which I am not familiar with. Obviously, a call of some sort.”

“For what?”

“Parlay, I suspect. Our…stick…shows no signs of magical preparation either before or after the call, indicating he wished for any possible meeting to be on neutral ground.”

“And was there a meeting?”

“Yes. Not longer after the call started, I estimate fifty Disillusioned individuals Portkeyed in, after which the standard anti-escape wards went up. The call immediately halted at their application. Beyond that, no other defenses or offenses were activated. Our friend took a position what would become the center of destruction, and the leader of the fifty stepped forward to a short distance from the ring.”

“What next?”

Dumbledore gave a flick, and the line advanced to a section of light below. “Our friend and the leader conversed for some time, and were evidently comfortable enough to remove their masks in front of each other.”

“Recognize them?”

“The leader, yes. I can’t say I’m surprised; the Yaxley name came up a few times in those files you delivered to me. As to the other…nothing. No spark of recollection has crossed my memory. And I’m quite sure I would remember coming across eyes like _that.”_

“I’m quite sure you would. I do _._ ”

Dumbledore ignored him and went on. “It seems the meeting ended on less than amicable terms between the two; the masks were replaced, some final remarks exchanged, and then…”

“And then…what?”

“…Before I continue Alastor, I have something I must confess. When you first brought this matter to my attention, your description of this Zarathos painted him in what I felt an unflattering light. A bloodthirsty killer, one who dealt with any potential enemy in the same manner every time; that is to say, permanently.”

“Aye. Smart fella; the only enemy that can’t curse you in the back is a dead one.”

“So you say. And yet, these events seem to suggest Zarathos is capable of at least mercy, if not outright forgiveness.”

“How’s that?”

“He was not the one that threw the first spell. Nor the second, the third, nor any of the ones that came after, for quite some time. As far as I can see, he performed only two acts during the first exchange: the erection of a spherical shield that as far as I can tell was able to stand against even the Unforgivables for a time, and a method of magical transport I must confess to never coming across before now. Nor had his attackers, judging by how their anti-escape wards failed to prevent it. Curious. I thought only phoenix travel was unblockable…”

“You’re drifting, Albus.”

Dumbledore snapped back to reality. “Right. Sorry about that, Alastor. Just theorizing…anyway, that’s hardly the most important matter here. The point I was trying to make was that while Zarathos is evidently capable of great violence, he nevertheless possesses the ability to know when it is best to grant a second chance. Which lays to rest no small number of my fears, Alastor.”

“Hmm. If you mean he’s not likely to go and off our problem only to replace it, you got that right. But as to the second chances bit…where exactly did he transport too, Albus?”

The time-line advanced once more. “To directly behind the wizard to Yaxley’s right, I believe. And it is here that he takes on the qualities you claimed he possessed: his first attack appears to have been a blade formed from the same energy as his earlier shield. A clean strike, straight through the back and out of his victim’s chest. It appears as though the blade then somehow…absorbed the body. Not the soul, I must stress. That had long since departed.”

Moody muttered to himself. “So, that’s how he’s been doing it…”

“After that, a portable, less extensive version of the shield, followed by what appears to have been a staff of pure lightning, with which he reflected his attackers’ spells back at them. I count three Killing Curses returned to their senders, at least. Once his opponents realized he was using his defenses as cover to advance, it was, I am afraid, much too late for them. The staff elongates into…what appears to be a giant, flaming, war-hammer. This is what appears to have been responsible for most of the missing bodies, as it left behind fiery tornadoes in its’ path that almost seemed to consist of…the Light version of Fiendfyre, if such a thing even exists. And for the finale, Zarathos somehow managed to launch himself into the air, gaining far greater height than a normal human should have been able to attain. Considering the war-hammer disappeared about that time, it is possible his ascent was magically assisted. And when he came back down…”

Dumbledore was silent for some time. Moody was just about to jog his old friend out of his ruminations, when he came back to life with a shudder, and finished his thought.

“…When he came back down…he brought the sky with him.”

Alastor did the only thing he could when confronted with a waxing poetic Dumbledore: he changed the subject. “So just like the first time, then. Quick, clean. And no survivors.”

Dumbledore seemed to sag ever so slightly. “I wish that were so, old friend. But now we come to the one part of this tale that has simultaneously given me the most hope…and the most fear.”

The line of light advanced one final time, to a tail glowing Killing Curse green.

Dumbledore turned his gaze to the ground. “Watch if you can, Alastor. I have done so, and possess no desire to repeat it.”

Alastor stared first in shock, then in horror, at the scene that played out before him. As Zarathos climbed out of the crater he had created, a single Killing Curse struck him in the chest, and sent him sprawling back into the hole. A somehow unharmed Yaxley strode over and gave what was probably a very nasty speech over the fallen corpse. That was the thing about recreations like this; the sounds and conversations were inevitably lost. It was why they were so rarely used by the DMLE. Well, that, and they were devilishly tricky and complicated to do.

As Yaxley turned to leave, a tremor seemed to pass through the image. Yaxley turned back in confusion, only to see something that Alastor had not thought possible:

Zarathos, slowly standing once more in the bottom of the pit. Underneath his feet grew a fresh patch of grass, the last bit having been blasted to smithereens earlier.

And then Zarathos rose into the air.

Wings of fire seemed to stream from his back, spreading out farther than any Veela’s, or at least that Alastor had ever seen. The fire moved to engulf his whole body, and when it reached his helmet, it vanished in the face of the flames, exposing his entire face to view. More specifically, his eyes.

Their natural green, they had retained, but the pupils had changed drastically. In their center was drawn a symbol Alastor didn’t recognize; a circle, inscribed within a triangle, with both bisected by a single thin line.

It was then that the second impossible thing happened:

Alastor heard the voice of Zarathos coming from the image.

**“You know, I was going to let you live. You were a good conversationalist, if nothing else, and you were clever enough to realize what your master would do to you for your failure. You might have atoned for your sins. Even the ones you committed to gain your Lord’s mark. But now, you’ve gone and done something you _really_ shouldn’t have. You’ve managed to kill me…and in doing so, revealed one of my secrets. And I’m afraid I can’t let you live knowing it. To put it bluntly…”**

Zarathos gave a jerk with his hand, and Yaxley was dragged into the air, his neck slamming home into an iron grip.

**“…You’ve pissed me off.”**

What followed was the most brutal torture Alastor had ever had the misfortune of seeing. When it was over, Alastor Moody did something he hadn’t done since he saw his first body at the tender age of thirteen years old:

He threw up.

When at last he was finished, he stood up, vanished the mess, and turned back to Dumbledore with a gleam in both of his eyes.

“We need to find our stick, Albus. Before he goes and does something we cannot _possibly_ explain away.”

“ _Our_ stick, Alastor? That man is his own master, and no one else’s. You know me; you know my feelings about information being kept from me. If we were to work for him, and make no mistake, it would be for, not with, how long do you think it would take before I pushed him too far? Asked him one too many questions? I know that symbol in his eyes; I know what it means. If he is what I suspect…he will judge anyone he comes across. Light or Dark. How you survived him, I cannot begin to comprehend. Fifty of the Dark’s best, Alastor, and he slaughtered them _all_. _Without a wand._ He will deal with our mutual problem, make no mistake. But afterwards, if he does not willingly return from whence he came…we can do nothing. Nothing but accept it. And pray that he does not realize we have uncovered one of his secrets.”

“So we _tell_ him, Albus. We tell him that we will do…nothing. That we _can_ do…nothing. And that we will do our best to see his secrets safe. Coming from me, he’ll believe it. I think. What _you_ need to do is prove yourself trustworthy to him as well.”

“How? _How,_ Alastor?”

“Well, to start, you could get rid of all of this. Permanently. The last thing we need is that Unspeakable coming back and finding _any_ of this. And if you truly want to get on the DOM’s good side, have that talk with Croaker. And make whatever promises you must to get them to leave Zarathos alone. You’re still the soft speaker of the Wizarding World; capitalize on that. And for Merlin’s sake, keep the purebloods happy. As far as anyone knows, there’ve only been a few deaths so far. And as far as we’re concerned, it’s going to stay that way. If any accusations against Zarathos come forward, they’ll be from the leaders of this little charade. And its them you have to silence.”

Dumbledore stroked his beard. “…It’s a start, I suppose. But that still leaves one problem: how exactly do we _tell_ him what we’ve done?”

Moody smacked himself in the face. “Och. Aye. Forgot about that. You might want to try sending the blighter an owl; if that fails, perhaps a messenger Patronus. And maybe, just maybe, that blasted flaming chicken of yours might be able to find him.”

“True. He possesses one magical transport I am unfamiliar with; perhaps the opposite is true as well.”

Dumbledore gave one final sigh, and dispelled the tangle of light still hanging mid-air. A brief look around to reassure himself that any Ministry officials had long since left, and he continued on. A few more flicks of his wand, and the playground repaired itself. Trees flew back in the ground, metal reformed into swings and slides, and the rest was re-covered with grass and sand. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

Replacing his wand in his robes, Dumbledore held his arm out to his partner. “Back to the Ministry, Alastor. I sense we are both going to be extremely busy for the foreseeable future.”

And with a crack, the two wizards Dis-Apparated.

A few moments after the echo faded, a lone figure let his invisibility cloak drop and stood from where he had been seated for the entirety of the conversation.

The Unspeakable merely cracked his neck, and took one final look at the scene. “Extremely busy. That’s putting it mildly, Dumbledore. That’s putting it mildly, indeed.”

And with another resounding snap of air closing on vacuum, the hooded figure vanished, leaving Surrey exactly as it had been mere hours before.

The horrifying truth of what had occurred there that day, buried now both by dirt and by paperwork; the only remining traces hidden deep within memories.

But what memories they were.

* * *

“Well, well, well. My dear brother-in-law, coming to _me_ of all people for help. My, oh, my, what _is_ the world coming to?”

Cygnus Black raised his head from his hands just long enough to glare at his visitor. “Ruin, Charlus. That’s what it’s coming to.”

Charlus Potter, husband of one Dorea Potter nee Black, and survivor of the war with Grindelwald, sat down across from his host. “Is this the part where you start your speech on how the revered traditions and practices of our great society are being dragged down into the muck by those of less fortunate birth?”

“No, this is the part where I pray you’re able to tell me there’s a half-blood Potter in existence.”

Charlus frowned. “A half-blood? Not for some time, I’m afraid. Why? Is it important?”

Cygnus downed his shot of Firewhiskey. “You have no bloody idea.”

“The great Cygnus Black, swearing in public? And caught drinking in the Hog’s Head? The world _really_ must be ending.”

“By the time I get done saying what I’ve got to say, you might wish it were, Charlus. Because if you can’t name a single half-blood Potter…then you’ve got an unknown Potter bastard running around wild in England. One capable of slaughtering twenty experienced witches and wizards where they stand. They chose the location, they had the first shot on him, and even when he realized what was going on, he acted like a bloody show-off. And he _still_ managed to put them all down. Oh, and did I mention he did it wandlessly?”

Charlus’ face had hardened at the mention of “bastard”. At “slaughtering”, his eyes narrowed considerably. And by the time Cygnus got to “wandlessly”, every trace of emotion had utterly vanished.

His voice sounded like a glacier carving its way through the landscape. “Cygnus, you are going to tell me, exactly and precisely, what has happened. And then you are going to explain, using extremely small words, just why you think it was a Potter that was responsible. Then, if it turns out you’re right, maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to bring myself to help you capture him, and turn him over to the authorities.”

There was silence from both parties for some time.

A snort.

A chuckle.

A guffaw.

The impossible had happened: Cygnus Black, for the first time in years…was laughing.

“Capture him?! Turn him _over?!_ Oh Charlus, nothing could be further from my mind! Didn’t you hear me, man? _They_ were the ones that attacked _him._ Twenty on one from ambush, and he still managed to wipe them all out. The only reason the Daily Prophet hasn’t grabbed the story and run with it is…well, you’ll see.”

A light appeared to come on in Charlus’ head. “You don’t want to catch him. You want to _join_ him. Or for him to join you.”

“Got it in one, Charlus. Tell me; what do you know of the Knights of Walpurgis?”

Charlus frowned. “The name is familiar to me, but I cannot say where I heard it.”

“Understandable. As far as the rest of the Wizarding World is concerned, the Knights do not exist. At least, not yet.”

Cygnus took another drink of his whiskey. “They started small. A call for the restoration of our traditions, harsher regulations for currency exchange, some mild cases of Muggle-baiting, you know the deal. All hidden and buried, the regulations and speeches in other legislation, and the baiting in the DMLE’s files. But lately, things have gotten more…intense. They have begun…recruiting. And after a good deal of negotiation, I allowed myself to be convinced that they were worth supporting.”

“I assume this is going somewhere, Cygnus?”

“Patience. My oldest, Bellatrix, was…one of those recruited. She was already betrothed to one of the highest ranked Knights, the Lestrange heir, so it seemed a natural next step.”

“The Lestrange…”

“Yes, I know, Charlus. Now please, no more interruptions. When she came back from her first official introduction to the Knights…she revealed something that seemingly confirmed my decision to support them. They have a Lord, Charlus. A full on Dark Lord; not just a bloody ponce with a worthless title.”

Charlus’ eyes bugged out; but he somehow managed to hold his tongue. If there truly was a Dark Lord on the rise…then things were about to get very, very bad. And the Light would need all the allies they could get.

Cygnus showed no signs of noticing his guest’s distress. “The things he did, that Bellatrix relayed to me…they were ancient magics, Charlus. Some of which I’m sure not even Dumbledore knows of. And his power…it’s off the scale. So, as you can imagine, whatever doubts I had harbored about following the Knights were utterly crushed. Dumbledore wouldn’t have been able to stand against him; even those that survived Grindelwald could only have delayed him. Yes, it truly looked as if I had chosen the right side, and was already preparing to convince the rest of my House of the same, when… _he_ …happened.”

“Your mysterious Potter.”

“It was Bellatrix’s initiation. A hit-and-run on a Muggle pub, just down from the Leaky Cauldron. It would have been a statement. It ended up being a massacre instead. I don’t know if he was waiting for them, or if it was just plain bad luck, but nevertheless, mere moments after the wards went up, and the advance group went in the back, they ran screaming in pain out the front. He had set them aflame with _Fiendfyre,_ Charlus. And he was in total control of it. They were burned, Charlus. Torched. _Not_ consumed. He made them _suffer._ And it only got worse from there.”

“Worse? How could anything be worse than _Fiendfyre?”_

“You’d have to see it to believe it. Which is what I intend to have you do.”

Cygnus removed a phial from his robes, a silvery substance contained inside. “I assume your family possesses a Pensieve?”

Charlus scoffed as he took the offered glass. “Of course. We aren’t barbarians, Cygnus.”

“Use it, then. Pay attention to every last detail. And when you’re done, I pray you realize exactly why the Blacks _must_ ally with this man if we are to survive.”

“Because it would be such a shame if that failed to happen. I assume certain of your daughters are already being coached as to how best to approach him?”

“I wish. As it stands, Bellatrix and I are the only ones to know the truth, although I’m quite sure she’d pursue him given half the chance. The memory you hold in your hand is my copy of her own from that day. I intend to show the original to Orion some time in the near future. If I had a name to go with the face, it would go a long way towards my case.”

“If you haven’t got his name, how are you so sure he’s a Potter?”

“The hair. You know better than I about the curse; its’ effects are unmistakable. As to the half-blood part…it’s the eyes. I know of no wizarding families with that particular shade. There’s no doubt about it, Charlus. Watch the memory, and you’ll find yourself agreeing.”

Charlus Potter stood. “Very well. I’ll watch the memory. If I see what you say I will…I will help you find him. But if these Knights truly have a Dark Lord for a leader…then no matter how powerful this wizard is, he’ll need more allies. We all will. You might want to go looking for them. I sure as hell will.”

And with that, Charlus Potter left the Leaky Cauldron, leaving Cygnus Black behind to his drinking. And his thoughts.

* * *

Harry remembered quite well the first time he’d ever been in a Muggle pub.

It had been right after he’d landed in the Urals. He had planned on landing somewhere well out of sight and throwing up what few concealment spells he knew, but after looking at his fuel gauge he realized that was completely out of the question. So, he had set down near what appeared to be one of the last remaining holdouts of civilization at the bottom of a mountain, made sure he locked the ship behind him, and set out looking for two things: fuel, and information.

He found the first, alright. Problem was, it cost money. Money he didn’t have. So, he set out to find that instead. And if he happened to discover something useful at the same time, who was he to complain?

To that end, he chose the most cliché avenue he could think of: gambling. And then proceeded to swagger into the loudest bar in town looking for some action (that it was the _only_ bar in town had absolutely no bearing on the matter).

It was quite easy to be mistaken for a beginner at a game when you had quite literally never played it before. That he would win the first round was a given; his opponents smelled blood in the water, and if they were going to squeeze him for everything he had, then they needed to keep him overconfident in his luck. Unfortunately for them, the Potter luck was rather more than they had counted on.

In other words, once you learned the rules of a game, it became ridiculously easy to cheat with magic.

A few rounds in, and he knew which of his fellow gamblers was the most likely to have the information he was looking for. Throwing a few hands to keep the rest of the table happy worked just fine for him, provided his target was losing the most money at the end. And in the end, it was just the two of them left, with a mountain of coins sitting between them.

Harry slid more of his winnings into the pile, enjoying his target’s reaction. “Double up.”

His opponent gulped, and glanced down at his cards yet again. The poor fellow was sweating like a zebra giving a speech to a bunch of lions. With trembling hands, he began counting the extremely small bunch of coins in front of him. It was some time before he spoke. “…I can’t match.”

Exactly the moment Harry was waiting for.

He leaned back in his chair. “Hmm. Shame. I was quite enjoying this. You know what, I’m feeling generous. You keep what you’ve still got, and in return for matching the bet, you tell me what you know about a…place…I’ve been looking for.”

The relief on the fellow’s face was evident. “Place? Sure man, I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know!”

Harry grinned. “Perfect. This place I’m looking for…I believe around here it’s known as…Durmstrang.”

The temperature in the room dropped by about thirty degrees.

The fellow’s nervous look was back. “Ah. Durmstrang, you say? That’s…interesting. From what I hear…a warlord owns the place now. Kills anyone who comes close. Not that many can manage _that.”_

Harry frowned. “How’s that?”

“Well, it can’t be found, can it? Place just…doesn’t exist. ‘Cept to those blasted Risen. Blighters that come back to life after they die…ain’t natural. They’re the only ones that can find the place. And even then, they don’t come back. Nobody _ever_ comes back from…Durmstrang.”

His words rang in Harry’s head. So, Durmstrang still existed. And was now run by a warlord. An obviously magical one, seeing as how he’d managed to get past the wards. And also with no small ability to kill the supposedly unkillable. Briefly, Harry wondered if the Killing Curse worked on the Risen. Or him, for that matter.

But that was neither here nor there.

Here, Harry was surrounded by quite a large number of people, all looking at him with no small amount of fear…and in some cases, hatred. Better do something about that.

He sighed, and laid his cards down on the table. “Call.”

His opponent looked from his cards, to him, then back again. A sigh, and he laid down his hand as well. As hands went, it was fairly good.

But not as good as Harry’s.

Harry reached out to swipe his winnings off the table, when his arm was grabbed by one of the other people at the table. “You looking for Durmstrang?”

Harry did his best to keep his voice level. “Perhaps.”

“You won’t survive. And all of that lovely cash you got’ll just disappear along with you. We’re taking it back. I, for one, don’t see your Ghost floating around anywhere nearby. By the time he brings you back, we’ll be long gone. Us, your money, and anything else you got worth taking. And there’s not a thing you can do about it.”

Harry thought about it. Four of them, one of him. Stunners would work; but without being able to go for his wand, he didn’t want to bet on them not wearing off in the middle of a fight. Permanent solution it was, then.

Harry smiled. “Wrong. There’s four things I can do about it.”

They moved.

But Harry moved first.

_“Reducto, Diffindo, Confringo, Expulso.”_

The one holding Harry’s arm collapsed back into his chair, a gaping hole in his chest. The second one simply stopped where he was, then simply…fell apart, his arms and upper torso now utterly detached from the rest of his body. The fourth was sent flying through the window out into the snow, his entire front caved in from the Banishing Spell. But it was the third that produced the most spectacular effect.

He exploded outwards in a shower of particles, a resounding BOOM originating from where he had just been standing. Before the ash could settle, Harry pulled out one of his wands, stuck it into the cloud, and incanted once more.

_“Evanesco.”_

It was only after the dust had Vanished that he realized something. “Human remains. Shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

He shrugged, and moved on the next body.

A few more Vanishing Spells, a Reparo on the window and table, and a Summoning Spell for his winnings, and the place was one again clean. Well, as clean as it had been when Harry walked in.

As he placed his wand back into his pocket, he noted that the establishment had become considerably less packed than it had been before the fight. In fact, Harry was the only customer left.

He snorted. “People. Sheep, all of them. They see something they can’t explain, and they either run from it, or burn it.”

A voice came from the direction of the bar. “You said it, brother. So what if you can do a few things normal people can’t? No reason to get all upset about it.”

Harry turned towards the speaker. Scruffy-looking fellow, warm-looking hat, and rather ragged-looking robes. Oh, and guns. Lots of guns. Gave him the appearance of that one weird uncle at family reunions you were always excited to see when you were younger. Or so Harry had been told. It wasn’t exactly like he’d had a lot of family to reunite with.

He cautiously approached the bar, the weird uncle behind it somehow conjuring a bottle out of thin air. “This here’s the good stuff, brother. Older than the Collapse itself. Puts hair on your chest, boy or girl, gaurunteed.”

Harry looked down at the bottle. Ogden’s Finest Firewhiskey. He looked back up at the bartender. His recognition must’ve been obvious, judging by how the man’s eyebrow rose ever so slightly. He reached out, and poured some of the drink into a pair of shot glasses. “Never did find out exactly who made it, but I got a friend that keeps me well-supplied. Just by happenstance, you understand, he’s also one of the few people that knows where to find that there place you was looking for. What was it called…oh yeah…Durmstrang?”

Harry took the offered glass, and enjoyed the feeling of the whiskey sliding down his throat. Something told him he was gonna need it.

He gently set down the now empty tumbler. “Yeah. Durmstrang. Your friend…any chance I can meet him?”

The bartender poured another round of drinks. “Well, that all depends, brother…”

“…On what?”

The man smiled. “Amongst other things…whether or not you can tell me exactly where this lovely bottle came from.”

Harry couldn’t resist the opportunity. “What, fixing your window for free doesn’t get me any credit?”

The man laughed. “You got guts, kid. I like that. But seeing as how my friend happens to own this entire mountain, and doesn’t take kindly to any…strange altercations…I’d say you fixing the window _you_ broke was the least you could’ve done. Now; about that bottle.”

Harry hadn’t known it at the time, but looking back, he realized it had been that night that had started it all. The night he met the one man that understood him, even a little, all those years in the future.

He’d had many names in the time Harry had known him. Dredgen Hope. The Drifter. But to Harry, he’d always be what he introduced himself as over a glass of Firewhiskey…

Eli. Just plain, old Eli.

And from there, things had, for the first time in a long while, begun to look better. And with every person Harry had met along the way…Felwinter, Shaxx, the Iron Lords, Osiris, Toland, Eris Morn…things had never stopped improving.

Until they did.

Harry was jerked from his ruminations by a family of three leaving the pub in quite a hurry. He looked around for the cause of their abrupt exit…

And found himself staring into the eyes of Fenrir Greyback.

Bollocks. It was the full moon tonight, wasn’t it?

Harry could only watch as the werewolf slowly made his way out onto the empty street. There was absolutely no rush to Fenrir’s movements; why should there be? After all, he had the entire night all to himself.

Or so he thought.

Harry rose to follow, when the bartender’s voice held him back. “Might want to stay in tonight, sir. We got some pretty bad wolf attacks around here lately.”

Harry resisted the urge to laugh. “I’ve been hunting wolves longer than you’ve been alive, brother. I think I can take care of myself.”

“But sir…”

His argument was cut short by the door slamming shut for the third time that night. And for a brief moment, he thought he caught a final retort from the stranger.

_“And believe me, Skolas was a lot more trouble…”_


	5. I Used My Own Special Technique

I own nothing. Least of all this.

5) I USED MY OWN SPECIAL TECHNIQUE

Augustus Rookwood took orders from exactly one person: himself.

That he never failed to follow his master’s rather forceful “suggestions” was more of a health issue than anything else. After all, telling a Dark Lord “no” just wasn’t the sort of thing one did unless your life insurance was up to snuff.

That being said, his master was quite aware of Rookwood’s philosophy, and did his best to allow his only spy in the Department of Mysteries at least some leeway when it came to making…suggestions. So it was that when Rookwood arrived on the scene of Zarathos’ latest massacre of the Knights, his only standing order from the Dark Lord was to “appraise the site, do your best to reconstruct the chain of events, and if you manage to discover how and why Yaxley was tortured, you will be well rewarded.”

And so far, it was looking like that reward was gonna be a big one.

Rookwood knelt before his Lord’s throne, and waited for permission to…

“Rise, my friend. Tell me; what information were you able to unearth?”

“Unearth is a very good description, my Lord. The site is now completely buried, and all traces of the battle have been destroyed.”

Voldemort’s eyes narrowed. “By whom, Rookwood?”

“By Dumbledore, my Lord, accompanied by the Auror Alastor Moody. I was able to eavesdrop on their conversation while they worked, and even more fortunately, witness the old fool’s reconstruction of the fight.”

Voldemort hissed in pleasure. “Well done, my friend. Please; tell all you have seen.”

One recap later…

Voldemort was shaking in rage, Rookwood was shaking in pain, and both of them were starting to believe they hadn’t been nearly as fortunate as each had originally thought.

Finally, Voldemort released his _Crucio_ and began pacing the room. “As far as I can see, there is only one acceptable explanation for what has occurred, Rookwood. Yaxley was a traitor, or at least considering the idea. He provided Zarathos with knowledge of my Mark, and in exchange, Zarathos agreed to a peaceful meeting, allowing him to bring as many of my followers along as he wished. It seems that they were unable to come to an arrangement, and Yaxley decided that he would be better off continuing to serve me. Foolish man; from the moment he removed his mask, his fate was sealed. That Zarathos took it upon himself to give a new meaning to the word pain is quite ironic, don’t you think?”

“I…agree…my Lord.” Rookwood gasped.

“We shall spread the knowledge far and wide of Yaxley’s fate; only we shall attribute his gruesome ending to my own hands. As a warning for any who dare to oppose me. As of this moment, each and every witch or wizard that accompanied him on his mission is to be declared a betrayer, with their ultimate fate being much the same as their leader’s. Zarathos’ first attack on our forces was an inside job; an audition, if you will, with Yaxley looking to determine if Zarathos truly stood a chance of facing the might of the Knights of Walpurgis. Those twenty lost to us that day are to be remembered as martyrs for our cause, and their failure to stand against Zarathos was due only to his preparation of the battlefield before-hand. Yaxley was the true threat, and with his treason now exposed to all, Zarathos no longer has the upper hand. Just one man, a minor obstacle in our ultimate path to domination.”

Rookwood had by this time managed to return to his previous position. “If you will forgive me, my Lord, one man he may be, but a man that apparently cannot be killed. Have you a possible explanation for his survival, sir?”

Voldemort stroked his chin. “Hmm. At first, I thought this Zarathos a mere mudblood or half-blood, one with a few original tricks and not much besides. The possibility still exists, but with a caveat: I believe he has managed to tie his soul to his body in a manner not easily bypassed. A side-effect of his attempt may have left him unable to properly wield a wand, thus resulting in his familiarity with more…elemental styles of magic. I do not recall ever seeing him take direct damage from a spell beyond the Killing Curse, which leaves me quite hopeful that if we were to destroy his body, his soul would be forcefully ejected from it. The worst we would have to prepare for would be an attempted possession afterwards; something easily taken care of. There is, of course, a second possibility: he has re-discovered ancient magics left behind by Grindelwald, and has become quite adept in their usage. Did you by chance happen to notice the symbol that flashed in his eyes immediately upon his…resurrection?”

“I did, my Lord. I must confess to seeing it within the files of my fellow Unspeakables, but I find myself unable to recall its exact meaning.”

“Understandable, my friend; I suspect that even if you were to go looking, you would not be able to find it again, much less determine its origin. It was a symbol used by Grindelwald quite extensively during the War; and we both know that the odds of unearthing any remaining records from Germany are almost as low as obtaining them from Grindelwald himself. No matter; our course of action is the same. For now, we regroup, sway more to our side, and above all, keep Dumbledore busy with the Ministry and the Wizengamot. Zarathos has no more sources within our organization, of this I am fairly certain. He will turn to others, outsiders, for information and backing. And with an absent Dumbledore, he will find his list of allies quite thin.”

“My Lord, what of the Department of Mysteries? Dumbledore stated his intentions to speak with Croaker; I will have to report to him first if I wish to avoid questions as to my presence at the site of the battle. What exactly should I relay?”

“Hmm…I think it best if you remain obtuse as to the exact nature of events. For now, we want a good relationship between Dumbledore and the DOM; do not add anything to your story that would reveal secrets Dumbledore has kept to himself. If the DOM becomes fixated on reconstructing exactly what happened, volunteer to reconstruct the battle yourself, and then delay the process as long as you can without revealing the site has been wiped clean. If they ignore the problem and concentrate solely on Zarathos instead, give them all possible assistance. Perhaps the DOM possesses information about him that we do not; and it would be a shame to let that information slip through our fingers, wouldn’t it?”

“I quite agree, my Lord.”

“You have done well, Rookwood; I must apologize for taking a small portion of my wrath out on you. As a reward…”

Voldemort flicked his wand, and the last remaining pain from the Cruciatus vanished.

“There. Your performance should be fully restored. And if you continue to succeed in your tasks, I may even gift you with an object that is…precious…to me. To guard it would be one of the highest honors I can bestow. Do you understand, Rookwood?”

Rookwood straightened to attention. “Sir, yes sir.”

“Good man. Now, I believe you have an appointment with Unspeakable Croaker. It would be a shame to miss it.”

Rookwood took the dismissal for the “suggestion” it was, and left the room with no small amount of haste.

Voldemort sat back on his throne, and continued to contemplate the existence of the only wizard besides Dumbledore able to invoke a sliver of fear in his heart…

* * *

Moonlit night or not, there was absolutely nothing romantic about the situation that Harry could find.

Then again, he wasn’t a teenage girl with an unhealthy obsession with werewolves and/or vampires, so who was he to judge? (That was one book series that Harry desperately wished _hadn’t_ survived the Collapse).

Still, he couldn’t deny that there was a certain…something…the night inspired. It had been hundreds of years since Harry had been able to see the stars twinkle, considering most of the places he tended to frequent all had damaged atmospheres in one way or another. And for the moon to show absolutely no signs of what would one day come to rest beneath its surface…it gave Harry a brief feeling of hope.

A hope Harry immediately crushed. Hope had always been Eli’s area of expertise; Harry had seen far too much to allow himself the same luxury. If Eli was “hope for the best”, than Harry was most definitely “prepare for the worst”. It was an attitude that had saved his life, and the lives of his friends, more times than he could count.

True, saving your friend’s life definitely lost some of its impact when said friend happened to be perfectly capable of coming back to life, but it was the thought that mattered.

At the very least, it prepared him for situations like this one.

The word “sneaky” appeared to have been deleted from Fenrir’s vocabulary; he was making more noise than a rutting moose in winter. Harry sighed. Was it too much to expect at least _some_ level of professionalism from what was supposedly the most competent and dangerous werewolf in all of England? Then again, it was pretty early on into the war. Perhaps Greyback hadn’t yet gained the experience that would back up his reputation in the days to come.

Experience Harry very much wanted to deny him.

The family Greyback had followed from the pub must’ve really done something to piss him off; nobody followed a Muggle car for twenty miles down winding roads on foot unless they had a very good reason. Harry had, of course, chosen a somewhat more comfortable method of pursuit: a prototype broom he had found while poking around Durmstrang’s many, many dungeons and tunnels.

When planning his return to the past, he had been tempted to take along his customized sparrow and ship, but seeing as how the fuel for his ship hadn’t yet been invented, and a sparrow with Basilisk bones strapped to it tended to stick out like a sore thumb even to other wizards (he was still ticked-off at Samuel Vos for what he’d tried to pull), he’d opted for his Brumeswept Night instead. Harry had absolutely no idea what sort of company “Brumeswept” had been, beyond the fact that they had somehow managed to find a way to incorporate Muggle methods of travel into a magical broomstick, and that was fine with him. Muggle mode had been useful to avoid questions about exactly _how_ a broomstick managed to fly in the first place, and the magical part had granted height and speed capabilities that Muggles would never have dreamed of. And considering they had managed space travel before the magicals, that was saying something.

The way Harry had actually managed to get into Durmstrang to do his poking around, and thus gotten lucky enough to find his current broom, had been quite the experience. Eli’s friend that just so happened to own an entire mountain had turned out to be a rather serious fellow by the name of Felwinter. He had reminded Harry of a mechanical, introverted, Mad-Eye Moody; paranoia, x-ray vision, and all. It was only after some rather lengthy negotiations, and Harry beating Felwinter in a duel to the death, that he even considered introducing Harry to the then resident of Durmstrang Castle: a Warlord by the name of Shaxx, whom Felwinter had been trying to court to join him and his fellow “Iron Lords” in a search for something or other named SIVA. The deal seemed simple on the surface: Harry would fight Shaxx, in the same way Felwinter had twice before. If Harry won, Shaxx would be forced to join the Iron Lords, and he could then be coerced into letting Harry, and by extension Felwinter, explore his mysterious abode.

In the end, Harry agreed to Felwinter’s terms, but only because they’d given him an idea. And an opportunity.

Shaxx had been the exact opposite of Felwinter; brash, loud, and full of life. If they ever ended up working together, Harry got the vibe that they’d end up in a similar relationship as Gryffindor and Slytherin had. When Shaxx had learned Harry might be able to find things hidden in the depths of Durmstrang that all others would miss, and that he could possibly teach some of what he knew or learned to others, Shaxx had countered Felwinter’s offer with one of his own: he would remain unattached, but if Harry were to beat him in a duel, he would allow both Harry and Felwinter exclusive access to Durmstrang, with the understanding that whatever knowledge or artifacts they found would only be shared between the three of them.

Felwinter hadn’t liked that.

In the end, Harry was able to propose what he had truly been aiming at: Shaxx would support the Iron Lords, and they would be able to call upon his services when needed, but none would enter Durmstrang beyond Harry himself. In exchange, all Harry found would be split between himself and Shaxx, with only certain knowledge passed on to both Felwinter, and one other unbiased party for insurance….Eli. The old codger already had at least a passing acquaintance with the magical world, even if was only their whiskey, and the less people that knew about things like the Killing Curse the better.

When both Felwinter and Shaxx had protested, Harry had sprung his final trap on them: if Harry could beat both of them in an all-out fight, _at the exact same time,_ then his terms would stand. If one of them managed to fell him, that person’s proposal would be accepted instead. No resurrections.

After assurances that he did indeed have his own ways of surviving fatal wounds, the two Risen Warlords had agreed. And so it was, in the frozen ruins of Vostok Observatory, that Lord Felwinter, Lord Shaxx, and Harry Potter had fought to the death.

In the end, Harry stood victorious, and Felwinter Peak stood about a meter taller than it had at the start of the match. A by-product of Shaxx being slammed into it at approximately the speed of sound. Repeatedly.

When at last his Ghost was able to reassemble him, Shaxx had laughed loud enough to cause an avalanche, slapped Harry on the back, and said he had fought like a demon. A true Warlord, worthy of choosing a name to match. Felwinter, having been bisected by a flaming whip from Harry, and possessing more than a passing acquaintance with characters from Muggle legend, had ended up being the one to suggest what would eventually become Harry’s official title.

And so it was that Lord Shaxx and Lord Zarathos officially joined the Iron Lords.

Harry jerked himself from his ruminations. They had arrived.

Even from where he sat, Harry could tell the family’s car had been sitting idle for some time. Apparently Greyback had underestimated his own speed. Either that, or he wanted to lure his prey into a false sense of security. One could never tell with Fenrir.

As the last clouds in the sky cleared away, exposing the full moon in all of its glory, Harry decided that no, one could _definitely_ tell with Greyback. Whatever choice would produce the most dramatic effect, that was the one he would go with. Rather like a Skywalker, if you asked him (when Harry had found out he’d missed the release of the Phantom Menace by less than a year, Felwinter Peak had gone up yet another half-a-meter).

Right, enough was enough.

As Fenrir’s howl echoed throughout the glen, it was cut off by a rather large rock smashing into his jaw.

“Oi! Keep it down, will you! There’s people trying to sleep around here, don’t you know!”

Greyback turned to face his attacker, eyes blazing in fury.

They met nothing but the darkest surface the wolf had ever seen.

A snarl sprung from his throat…and then he himself sprung to follow it.

CLANG!

The burning hammer caught Greyback directly between the eyes, stopping him dead in his tracks. In the orange-tinted light, he could now see more of his opponent than even his enhanced senses had been able to provide. What he saw was a demon, a creature of the night, and an unmistakably more powerful wolf than even he.

“Bad dog! Down! Stay!”

More powerful or not, no one spoke to Fenrir Greyback like that and lived. He leapt once more, this time aiming for the arm still holding the hammer. His teeth closed down on what felt like iron plating; or, to be more specific, iron plating with silver inlay. The burning sensation in his mouth was proof enough of that.

“Huh. Whaddya know. Guess it _was_ worth it to hijack that shipment back to Fenchurch.”

Before Greyback could let go, the demon’s other arm cam up and caught the top of his snout. Ever so slowly, he forced the jaws of the wolf apart, and then held them there.

“Now, I don’t know about you, but where I’m from, there’s a very famous saying: don’t ever take a bull by the horns. Cause holding on can sometimes be just as bad for you as letting go. And in the case of a rabid dog like you, I feel its my duty to show you exactly what I mean.”

Harry’s hands began to move once more, forcing Greyback’s jaws apart even further.

And further…

And further…

_And further…_

CRACK!

_RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP!_

SNAP!

…

Harry let the body drop to the ground; conjured a sack; vanished the blood; and for a finale, tossed the two halves of the werewolf into the bag and tied it shut. Whistling, he strode up to the front door of Greyback’s former targets, and knocked four times. It wasn’t long before a light came on in the house, followed by the door swinging open to reveal a rather bleary looking man.

“Do you have any idea at all what time it is?”

“Nope, can’t say that I do. But if you’d like to tell me, as well as answer a few other questions, I believe I can make it well worth your while.”

The man blinked. “Police?”

Harry reached up and scratched his head. “Something like that.”

“Ah. One of you lot then. I’ll fetch my wife then; she’s the witch of the family.”

The door slammed shut, only to open once more shortly after. This time, a rather short but cute blonde stood in the entrance, with a questioning look in her eyes. “Yes, Auror? How can I help you?”

“First of all, you might want to invest in some better wards. Even from here, I can see they wouldn’t exactly be a challenge to a determined individual, and seeing as how you’re likely to have trouble around here soon, you’re going to need something more.”

“Trouble? What sort of trouble?”

“That leads into my second question: do you happen to know what the current reward is for one Fenrir Greyback, dead?”

The witch stiffened. “Greyback? Is he…?”

“He was, ma’am. But not anymore.”

“What happened?”

“…I guess you could say he lost his head. Either that, or he opened his mouth when he really shouldn’t have. Same result either way; I was just wondering whether or not it would be worth it to turn in his body on my own, and give your family half of the proceeds for the trouble, or just leave him here and let you and your own take care of it.”

“…A thousand galleons dead, fifteen hundred alive.”

“Hmm. I got no idea how much that’s worth nowadays; will a thousand be enough to split, or do you want all of it?”

“…You’re not an Auror, are you.”

“No ma’am, just an expert passing through. Now; whole thousand, yea or nay?”

The witch seemed to sway on her feet. “There’s…now way…we can use a thousand. Just…leave us enough for the wards, I guess. If…if that monster’s truly dead…then his friends are going to want revenge.”

“So it would seem. Alright; thank you for your trouble, Miss…”

“…Willis. Missus Willis.”

“Willis, then. I’ll get someone on your wards first thing in the morning; but in the meantime, I’d really like to stick around and make nothing else happens. Do you mind if I sleep on your porch?”

The very thought seemed to horrify the woman, and Harry immediately started backtracking. “If not, that’s fine. I’ve got a roll and blanket; I can sleep out in the woods if that’s more convenient…”

The woman barely let him finish his sentence before telling him exactly what she thought of _that_ particular idea. “You will do no such thing! You are going to come inside; I am going to make you a nice cup of tea; and then and only then are you allowed to fall asleep, inside our guest bedroom. Porch and woods, indeed…”

Harry could only shake his head and follow the irate hostess inside. A couple hundred years of existence, and he was still no better at understanding people than he had been at eleven.

* * *

Algernon Croaker, Head of the Department of Mysteries, Unspeakable Number One, and General All-Round Spook, looked into the eyes of Albus Dumbledore and Alastor Moody, down at the mountain of paperwork that he had just been handed, and then back up once more. “Tell me, Albus. Exactly how does a rise in the number of cases of Muggle-baiting relate to the destruction of a Muggle playground through unknown magical means, why should I care, and what do you wish for me to do about either problem?”

“Read the files, Algernon. It is necessary for you to draw some of your own conclusions about this matter, otherwise you will not believe even half of what we have to say.”

Moody snorted. “Half? Try one-tenth. I should know; I’m the one that discovered the whole blasted affair.”

Croaker flipped through the first reams of paper. “Blasted is a very good description of what our Department found yesterday. The only reason I don’t have either of you dosed up to the gills in Veritaserum, even you Albus, is because you came to me willingly.”

“An attitude we both understand and appreciate, my dear fellow. In the end, the truth will out.”

Croaker snorted. “I certainly hope not; if it did, I’d be out of a job. The truth is such a precious thing that it must always be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies. Yet another reason to let you speak freely; if you’re lying, it’ll at least point me in the right direction.”

Dumbledore sighed. “Trust me, Algernon, by the time we are done, you will be wishing that every word we have said was as far from the truth as you could get.”

“That remains to be seen.”

The room settled into an uneasy silence as Croaker continued to flip through the case files. Once the last paper left his hands, only then did the Unspeakable lean back in his seat and place his hands under his chin. “So; you’ve got a rising group of purebloods all pushing for either Muggle extermination or domination; they’ve been hiding quite effectively up until now, so I’m going to say that they’ve made a slip-up and come to your attention rather sooner than they would have liked. Considering the presence of Auror Moody, I will further guess that they managed to do it in such a way that resulted in at least one other confrontation with competent individuals besides the one that obviously occurred yesterday. One that Mr. Moody was either present for, or received a firsthand account of from one of the survivors. He then brought the matter to your attention, and since then you’ve both done your level best to keep the situation quiet while you figured out exactly what you were dealing with. How close am I?”

Dumbledore stroked his beard. “Closer than you would think, Algernon…and yet still farther than I would have liked. You stated that there had been at least one other confrontation; that part was correct. However, I am afraid that there were no ‘competent individuals’, as you put it, to handle the situation. Nor were than any survivors; and Auror Moody was not present for the incident.”

Croaker frowned. “Then how the blazes did you find out what happened?”

“Simple,” Moody drawled. “I got it firsthand from the tough little bastard that leveled an entire group of the blighters to the ground, with nary a scratch on him to show for it. I think the only reason he stuck around to tell me exactly what he’d done and why was cause he recognized me from somewhere; only way I can figure he knew enough to call me ‘Mad-Eye’. Competent? Calling him competent is like calling Albus here ‘mediocre’. Fellow left behind only five positively-identifiable bodies, and each one had been put down like the rabid dogs they were. Five out of twenty, with the rest utterly vaporized. And the only reason your little club of spooks anonymous didn’t find out about it is that the stupid blighters had put SEP fields up before the fight.”

Croaker blinked. “So the only difference between then and yesterday was…what, exactly?”

Dumbledore held up his hand and began to count off. “First, no SEP fields. While the same competent individual was involved, I believe that since his attackers learned he was the one responsible for the passing of their brothers and sisters, they sought to make an example of him, at the earliest convenience. The only wards I was able to find at the location were all related to magical travel, nothing more. Second, I believe that the individual himself did not await an official response, as he did the first time. Perhaps he wished to make an example of his own; perhaps not. If he had waited, and Alastor here was not the first to arrive, the end result would have been the same, I think. So far he has shown no signs of antagonism towards the Ministry, only towards the unfortunate families of the Wizengamot that have decided to sponsor this…movement.”

Croaker held up a hand of his own. “We’ll come back to the differences later; right now, there’s only two things that concern me. What can you tell me about the movement, and what can you tell me about your…individual?”

Dumbledore began slowly. “…As far as we have been able to determine, the movement appears to have become deeply entrenched, even taking on militaristic tendencies to achieve their goals. While we have yet to ascertain the actual name they have christened themselves, there is a distinct possibility that the name itself is known only to the highest levels of their organization. That being said, there is one outsider who I believe knows a great deal more about them than he has so far relayed: that is to say, the individual who fought them off on both occasions has almost undoubtedly had dealings with them before…and I am of the firm belief that they ended poorly.”

“How poorly are we talking?”

Moody snorted. “Poor enough that he would rather execute their members in cold blood than see them keep on doing what they were doing. Fellow showed absolutely no remorse for what he’d done; can’t blame him, considering they were about to slaughter an entire pub full of Muggles. There’s a very old saying, Croaky: speak softly, and carry a big stick. Apparently, our friend’s had enough of the speaking; now, he’s sticking it to ‘em.”

A grumble from Croaker. “And if he’s done speaking, I suppose that just makes it that much harder to actually talk to the bloke?”

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair. “Considering that thus far the only civil exchange that we know of was initiated by him, I think was can safely say he’s just very particular exactly who he talks to.”

“…All of which put together implies that you don’t want _me_ talking to him; or any of my people, for that matter. You don’t want to scare him off.”

“For the moment.” acknowledged Dumbledore. “Until I myself have a chance to converse with him, I do not think it prudent to give such a dangerous…stick…another target for his ire. And rest assured, his ire is exactly what you would earn should you go searching for his secrets. One of his opponents in the incident yesterday accidentally revealed something that he did not wish discovered. His response was the stuff of nightmares.”

Croaker gave the Headmaster a shrewd look. “And just exactly how did you come by that piece of information? Considering I know for a fact not even you are capable of reconstructing conversations magically.”

Dumbledore merely looked down at his feet. “That is, alas, not my secret to tell, Algernon. Perhaps after I have met with the…individual, or at least he with Alastor once more, then I may possibly obtain permission to tell you. But for now, I beg you: stay away from him. For your own sake, if nothing else.”

For a long time, no one spoke.

Then, Croaker gave a sigh and leaned forward once more. “Speak softly, and carry a big stick. I know the phrase, Auror Moody. And I know what it usually leads to. In this instance, I hope you’re a better speaker than he is a stick, Albus. For all our sakes.”

“I as well, Algernon.”

“Just two more things: if I were to ask you to divulge precisely which spells our ‘stick’ employed in the incident yesterday, would you?”

“I would indeed, Algernon. If I knew them. As far as I can tell, our ‘stick’ was casting both silently and wandlessly, with a distinctively elemental flair to his attacks. One of his flame strikes appeared to be the Light counterpart to Fiendfyre, if such a thing even exists. He possesses an enchanted blade I suspect is able to absorb various curses, and while expressing his…displeasure with the revealer, he used several distinctively Dark objects, projectiles, I believe, that had the appearance of…great, twisted, thorns.”

“Which leads me to my last question: if one of our operatives were to run into him in the field, how would they be able to recognize him, if for the sake of avoiding him if nothing else?”

Moody answered. “Dark robes; almost like a Muggle trench coat from the War. Bandoliers, one for ammo, one to carry his sword and sheath. Blood-stained knee-high boots, with silver inlays and bones strapped to the sides. Hood to cover his face, and a perfectly smooth, black helmet under that. If you happen to catch him with that off, he’s got spectacularly bad hair with Killing Curse green eyes; pale face, I’d guess from being constantly covered. Muggle firearm on his right leg; and other than that, I can’t say.”

“I don’t suppose you have a name for this supposedly end-all be-all badass, do you?”

“…Zarathos. He called himself Zarathos.”

“A foreigner?”

“English accent, so I’d say no. More than likely a fake name. Understandable, if he’s trying to distance himself from his past…associations.”

“And on a power scale?”

Moody glanced at Dumbledore.

The Headmaster barely raised his voice in reply. “…On a power scale, if what I’ve seen of him was on his good days…he could easily beat me on one of my bad ones. If those massacres were on his bad days…I’d hate to see what his enemies look like at the end of a good one.”

“…So, another up-and-coming Dark Lord, then.”

“Lord, yes. Dark, no. He was planning to show mercy, Algernon, at least once that we know of. It was only when his…secret…was outed, that he changed his mind. He also seems to respond well to reason; something Dark Lords are not characteristically known for.”

“True. Well gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, its now half-an-hour after we started this little tete-a-tete, and I’m overdue for my morning coffee.”

As the occupants of the room rose, Dumbledore couldn’t resist asking one more question. “Will you hunt him, Algernon?”

“…For now? No. Will we do our damnedest to find out exactly how to beat him? Absolutely. He’s dangerous, Albus. The only difference between him and our mutual opponents is that he’s dangerous in a way that will most definitely not be popular. And that is the only reason that, once again, for now, I won’t hunt him. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Dumbledore made only one comment by way of response as he and his companion left the room. “That’s the thing with fish, Algernon: there’s always a bigger one.”


	6. Keeping My Eyes Open And My Mouth Shut

I own nothing. Least of all this.

6) KEEPING MY EYES OPEN AND MY MOUTH SHUT

Bellatrix sighed.

It was no good. Every single dress she owned was unsuitable. True, she’d been raised believing that her parents and Head of House would pick her out a suitable spouse when the time came, and as such her role was to prove her worth as either a manager of a household or a respectable career woman (that the career she had been aiming for wasn’t exactly ‘respectable’ was neither here nor there). But now, things were different. She had been practically ordered to use any means at her disposal to get the wizard Zarathos firmly on the side of the Blacks…and she had been looking forward to running with the idea.

That is, right up until she took a good look at her closet.

“Oh, Merlin’s saggy underpants, this is all rubbish!”

A familiar head poked around her bedroom door. “Well, well, well. I sense no small amount of distress in _here_. I haven’t heard you swear like that since the day you discovered our illustrious Ministry’s attitude towards career witches.”

Bellatrix sniffed. “Please. As if you didn’t swear enough for a sailor after your first day apprenticed to Madame Pomfrey. How many bandages did she make you wrap again, Dromeda?”

Andromeda Black growled. “Too bloody many. But right now, we’re talking about the troubles in _your_ life, not mine. So, spill. What’s all rubbish, and why is that particular fact vexing you?”

Bellatrix pointed with no small amount of emphasis in the direction of the offending garments. “That! They! Those! Take your pick; because I certainly can’t take mine.”

Andromeda glanced around the room, noting for the first time exactly how much clothing had been tossed in seemingly random places. “Ah. I take it that none of these fine pieces of tailoring are suitable for whatever half-baked idea that’s taken up lodgings in your lovely little head?”

“Not just _my_ head,” she returned dryly, sinking to the floor. “Father’s head as well. This was as much his idea as mine.”

Andromeda joined her sister on the carpet. “And what idea, pray tell, is that?”

Bellatrix sucked on her lower lip. “There is…a wizard. A rather powerful one; Father thinks he just might be a Lord. And I’m inclined to agree with him. Father has ordered me to…ensure his loyalty to the Black family by…any means necessary.”

“…Hence the need for a certain kind of dress.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“…And what exactly does your beloved fiancé have to say about this? Or our Mother, for that matter?”

“I imagine Mother would say quite a number of things, if she knew. And so would Roddy; that is, if he were still alive to do anything about it.”

 _That_ certainly killed any of Andromeda’s desire for their usual back-and-forth banter stone-dead. “Bella, you’re my sister, and I love you. But unless you tell me exactly what the sentence you just uttered actually means, I swear I will impale you with my hairbrush.”

Bellatrix shrugged. “I meant what I said; Roddy’s dead. Killed. I watched it happen, right in front of me. Rabastan, too…good riddance. Seeing as how he was stupid enough to insult a demon, I think he deserved every single thing he got. Which was, if I remember correctly, a flaming sword through the chest.”

Andromeda’s face had gone white. “A demon?”

“Metaphorically, of course. You know that Father’s been having me attend meetings of the Knights, in order to assure our position with their Lord?”

“Ye- _es_ …”

“Yesterday was supposed to have been my initiation as a full member. A few worthless Muggles killed, right on the Wizarding World’s doorstep, as a message. Only, instead… _he_ was there; waiting. Almost like he was expecting us. The first four he turned into torches; Fiendfyre, I think. I was almost next; I’m ashamed to say the only reason I wasn’t was because my knees gave out right before. His second attack vaporized the Knights behind me…not even ash left of the bodies. His third…was the sword I mentioned. After that…I can’t say. I was cowering, trying to keep my shields up. It was only because I was next to him when he executed Roddy that he even noticed me at all.”

“…What did he do to you, Bella.”

“Hmm? Oh, not much. He gave me a message; for one of the Knights’ Inner Circle, I think. Said that no matter where they looked, they’d never be able to find out anything about him. Not even his name. Whereas he knew _everything_ there was to know about them. And that their war wouldn’t be as easy as they thought.”

“I…see.” said Andromeda slowly. “Am I correct in assuming that this…wizard…is the current object of your preoccupations?”

“Yes, Dromeda.”

“Hmm. And just how do you propose to go about…persuading him…when without a name, I anticipate it will be quite troublesome just to find him? Especially considering we’ve never heard of hm before.”

“Oh, that’s quite simple Dromeda. When I showed Father the memory, he made the brilliant deduction that our wizard was a Potter; a half-blood bastard, in fact. He’s got Uncle Charlus looking for him right now; it shouldn’t be too long before they find him. And while we may not have his name yet, he did leave behind a title in his message to the Knights.”

“A title?”

“Yes. Zarathos. A good strong name, don’t you think? Even if it is quite probably a false one. Perhaps he knows more of wizarding culture than we thought, to pick such a pureblood-sounding pseudonym. But that’s for Father and Uncle Charlus to find out. In the meantime, I need a new dress. One with far less…” she wrinkled her nose in distaste. “… _frills._ ”

“You know…I believe I have a few little numbers in my closet we can alter to fit…”

“Really?” a smile lit Bellatrix’s face. “Then what are we waiting for?”

And with that, Andromeda found herself being dragged down the hallway at breakneck speeds. Oh, well. If the family of Black was truly considering swaying a half-blood bastard to their side over the cries of their fellow nobles, who was she to stand in the way?

At the very least, it might make things easier for her later…

* * *

A silvery mist passed through the halls of the Ministry, leaving behind the feelings of warmth and joy in its path.

Ironic, considering the form it coalesced into in front of its intended recipient.

“Mad-Eye.” The frightening image began. “Dealt with Fenrir Greyback. No medical attention needed. Would bring body in for ID and reward, but don’t want my hosts left unguarded for too long. Floo is the Green Dragon pub; I’ll be waiting. Bring a trustworthy warder with you when you come.”

The spectral figure faded away, leaving behind two very astonished wizards.

“…Albus?”

“Yes, Alastor?”

“I thought you were the only one around with a Magical Patronus.”

“So did I, Alastor. So did I.”

“Mind explaining exactly how it is that Zarathos’ rather reminds me of a Thestral?”

A Ministry employee passing by caught Moody’s last sentence, and stopped to see what else they could hear. Neither wizard took any notice at all of their eavesdropper.

“…While I can hazard a guess as to the how, I’m afraid that, once again, it would not be my secret to tell. Might I suggest you ask him yourself after you conclude your other business.”

“After _we_ conclude our business, Albus.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard him; blighter needs someone on wards. Name one other witch or wizard with half the amount of your skill in that department…”

Dumbledore opened his mouth to reply…

“…That also happens to be even one-tenth as capable of keeping a secret.”

Dumbledore’s mouth clamped shut once again.

“Not so easy, is it? Specially when it comes to our mutual friend.”

Dumbledore sighed. “I’m just…not convinced it’s a good idea for me to accompany you. There is simply no telling how he may choose to respond, should I either let something slip or push too hard.”

“Well then,” Moody drawled, “if you’re worried about pulling, you might just try pushing instead. And as to the slipping…might I recommend you stay away from any and all banana peels?”

Dumbledore’s glare did absolutely nothing to wipe the smirk off Moody’s face.

“Listen, Albus, the man’s taken out _Fenrir Greyback._ The most dangerous werewolf in all the British Isles; on a full moon, I might add, with absolutely no damage done to either himself or anyone else. Just another one of our problems he’s taken the time to clean up. Consider this a…down-payment for his services. Anything else he might ask of us afterwards…well, that’s for him to know and us to find out. Can you live with that, Albus?”

A long silence.

A sigh.

“…I shall try, Alastor. I shall try.”

“Good. Now come along. We’ve got an appointment at the Green Dragon pub; and it would be a terrible shame if we were to be late.”

A small grin tugged at the corners of Dumbledore’s face. “Quite a shame, indeed.”

As the two wizards continued along their way, neither noticed their little spy immediately set out in the opposite direction. The House of Black had offered a substantial fee for any information pertaining to a wizard named ‘Zarathos’; and if the Daily Prophet happened to pay handsomely as well for a tip about the slayer of Fenrir Greyback, well, who was he to complain?

* * *

Moody’s head emerged from the fireplace…and was met with a rather large metal cylinder pointed directly between his eyeballs.

“Prove that you’re Alastor Moody.”

“…Considering I’m the only blighter I know that’s managed to survive speaking to you face to face, shouldn’t I be asking you to prove who _you_ are?”

“Fair point. How bout this: Constant vigilance, Mad-Eye. If it hadn’t been me waiting for you, you might’ve lost your head when you came through.”

Moody snorted. “With a Muggle firearm? You insult me.”

“Trust me, there’s nothing Muggle about this particular weapon. Fella that built it intended for it to kill the unkillable; and so it does.”

“How’d you end up with it, then?”

“Present from the man that put down its creator for good. Said I was one of the few he trusted not to go overboard with it.”

“What’s it do, precisely?”

“Eats souls. Now, I believe I told you to bring along a warder?”

“Aye. That you did. He’s right behind me; shall I send him through?”

“No, not yet. You come through first; then stand on your right side of the Floo. You, I trust. Until I know who you brought, I can’t say the same about them.”

“Trust me lad, he’s one of the most trustworthy and competent individuals in the whole business.”

A sudden, horrid possibility happened to cross Harry’s mind.

“…Albus Dumbledore, I presume?”

“Aye; that’d be him.”

Bollocks. Double bollocks.

Oh, well. When in Rome…

“Fine. But I’m still asking you to stand to the side, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, lad.”

The fireplace gave a flare of light as its first passenger came through, and then took up his assigned position. Seconds later, it flared once again to admit a second guest…who was met with exactly the same sight as his predecessor. The only difference was in his reaction.

“I would ask you to prove that you’re Albus Dumbledore, but the fact that you’re only one of two wizards I know of who could even possibly be able to feel this thing’s aura seems to speak for you. And I very much doubt the other possibility would ever consider Polyjuicing or glamouring himself as you.”

Dumbledore slowly lowered his wand as his shield dissolved into nothing. “May I inquire as to exactly who this other possibility might be?”

“The Lord of the Knights. And that’s all I’m saying until we’ve got wards between us and any listeners.”

Moody frowned. “If you’re so worried about security, why’d you tell us to come here?”

“Several reasons. One, it’s the nearest Floo to where we need to be. Two, I could have sent you a Portkey, but I rather think a paranoid blighter such as yourself would have taken that poorly. Three, I refuse to leave those under my…protection…alone for too long. And fourthly, ‘the only brew for the brave and true comes from the Green Dragon’.”

Moody snorted. “Brave and true? That’d make you a Gryffindor, then.”

Harry smirked. “So I’m told. You can put your wand away now, Mister Dumbledore. I rather doubt any shield you can produce would be able to block all the damage from my little trinket.”

The aged wizard reluctantly complied. “Perhaps; but I think it would be able to hold for long enough to give Alastor an opening.”

The table in front of Harry slid to the side, revealing the purple ball of energy glowing in his left hand. “What opening?”

Neither of the two had a response to that.

Harry stood, holstered his Thorn, and gestured towards the door. “After you, gentlemen.”

Moody couldn’t resist making one remark backwards as the door swung shut behind them. “You know any Apparition from here to…wherever we’re going can be tracked, right?”

“Of course,” Harry replied. He clapped a hand on each of the wizards’ shoulders. “That’s why we’re not Apparating.”

Moody had just enough time to look up and see the absolutely massive bolt of lightning come crashing down.

His last thought before the world went white was that it was still better than a Portkey.

* * *

“POTTER!”

Charlus Potter rubbed his nose. Giving Cygnus Black his Floo address had been a mistake. “No Cygnus, for the third time today, I haven’t found anything.”

“WELL _I_ HAVE! GET YOUR ARSE OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!”

One quick jump into a fireplace later, and Charlus Potter was standing in front of his (for now) very valuable ally. “Right. What’s happened?”

Black was, to his surprise, shaking. Whether in fear or excitement, he couldn’t tell. “He’s struck again, Charlus. Took out Greyback, all by himself.”

…And last night had been a full moon. “I see. To St. Mungo’s, then?”

“Guess again.”

“The morgue?”

“Still wrong.”

“…Don’t tell me; the DMLE’s holding cells, waiting to see if he’s been fully turned.”

“That’s a _definite_ no. Can you guess why?”

Charlus scratched his head, and then shrugged. “I’ve got nothing.”

“He wasn’t hurt, Charlus. Not even a scratch on him. He killed the worst wolf in England, on a full moon, without so much as a bloody scrape.”

“…HOW?”

“Buggered if I know. But I can tell you who _does_ know by now for sure: Alastor Moody…and Albus Dumbledore.”

“…Bugger.”

“My thoughts exactly. My informant overheard the old fool call his dealing with Greyback ‘one of _our_ problems he’s taken the time to clean up’. If he’s already tight with Dumbledore, we may be too late to sway him.”

Charlus growled. “And if Dumbledore’s been the one hiding him, and I dare say raising him as the weapon he is, then he and the rest of my House are going to want to express their… _displeasure_ with him. Preferably using copious amounts of violence.”

“I’m sure Zarathos would take that personally, if he really were the old man’s bulldog. Which I have reason to doubt, seeing as how Dumbledore seemed absolutely _terrified_ of him.”

“Terrified, hmm? We can work with that. So…what’s our plan?”

“I’ve got a Floo address; the Green Dragon pub. For some reason, he had Moody and Dumbledore come to him, instead of claiming the reward at the Ministry.”

“If it were anyone else, I’d say he was trying to avoid attention.”

“You’re forgetting; he _is_ a Potter. Brave in every other arena…except for that of public opinion.”

“Oi! I resent that!”

“Do you deny it?”

“No, but I resent it.”

Cygnus sniffed. “Tough. Now, as I was saying, while we can speculate on exactly _why_ he made officialdom come to him, to my mind, there’s only one conclusion worth drawing from his actions.”

“And that is?”

“For the time being, he’s staying in one spot. A spot we just so happen to know the approximate location of.”

Cygnus hurled a handful of Floo powder into the flame. “After you.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. I understand why _I’m_ going; why you? You know what he did to the _last_ member of the Black family he came across.”

“Yes, yes I do. Which is why I have _you_ going first. You’re going to make such a marvelous shield after the introductions. Pity about your unfortunate widow…excuse me, my unfortunate sister.”

“Still sore about that, are you?”

“Who, me? Never. I reiterate; you first.”

Charlus’ voice echoed from the fireplace long after he’d been swept away. “Your sister; my sergeant-at-arms.”

And for a brief moment, Cygnus Black regretted sending his brother-in-law like a lamb to the slaughter, as he recalled exactly which Dark Lord the man’s wife had managed to duel to a standstill.

* * *

Moody rubbed his eyes once more. “You sure this’ll go away on its own?”

Harry’s retort came quickly. “I don’t know, its not like I’ve ever looked _directly into the Light_ while using Ionic Blink; figures it’d be _you_ that thought of it first. As a point of curiosity, what’d it look like?”

“White. Just…white.”

“Huh. So, just like a flashbang then. I wonder if I can get the effect to extend outwards…would make it more useful for fast exits…”

Dumbledore’s voice cut into his speculations. “As interesting as alternative magical transportation methods are, I believe there are some wards that need to be applied?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, sure. The house in front of you. Owners are named Willis, if you know them. If not, I’m sure they know you.”

A look of recollection crossed Dumbledore’s face. “Half-blood wife and Muggle husband?”

“That’s them. Just go on in and get to work; we’ll join you as soon as Mad-Eye here ID’s Greyback’s body.”

And explains a few things, he silently added.

Dumbledore nodded, and made his way up the porch steps. The minute the door creaked closed behind him, Harry whirled to face his still somewhat blind companion. “Seeing as how you’re not gonna be doing any identifying for a while, I ‘ve got a couple of questions to ask you.”

“Fire away.”

“One, just what the hell were you thinking dragging Albus bloody Dumbledore into this? You said it yourself, he’s not much of a hope! His talents lie in dragging out and obfuscating bureaucratical matters as long as possible, when he’s not being a controlling, secretive mastermind that is.”

“Exactly why I ‘dragged him in’, as you put it lad. There’s no better person to keep certain people from getting answers to awkward questions they might ask, as well as keep anyone from interfering when you decide to go poke another hornet’s nest. Like you did yesterday afternoon, I believe.”

Whatever Harry had planned as a response vacated his mind at that very instant. “…You know about that, then?”

Moody snorted. “Know about it? The whole bloody Department of Mysteries knows about it, lad. You weren’t exactly subtle.”

“For me, that _was_ subtle. And the only remotely Dark thing I did shouldn’t have set off any alarms.”

“It wasn’t the kind of magic you used, lad. It was the _amount._ Any magic by itself in Muggle neighborhoods is investigated as a matter of course; you probably expected me to bury that for you, right?”

A nod form Harry.

“Yeah, well, considering you left the place looking like bloody Grindelwald himself had been there, you’re lucky I was able to get Albus as soon as I was. He eradicated every single piece of evidence you left behind, but not before an Unspeakable got a good look at the site. We had to work quick after he left to make sure he wouldn’t be showing anything he found to his friends without a Pensieve.”

“Ah. As much as I appreciate that, I really think you’re wrong about what set off the DOM’s alarms.” Harry shook his head. “No; it wasn’t the amount of magic that drew them. The amount I used…earlier that day didn’t disturb any anthills. And I’m not talking about that little fracas in the pub. It must’ve been the…”

His voice trailed off.

Moody finished the sentence. “…The bit where you was too tough of a bastard for the Devil to swallow, so he spit you back?”

He had barely gotten the last word out before a blade, glowing with the same energy as the ball had earlier, was singing next to his throat.

“Explain. Preferably using very small words.”

Moody tried very hard not to swallow. “Albus…reconstructed the fight. Everything…from beginning to end. He was…hopeful, at first. Then…awed, is the closest I can get. And at the last, after you…did what you did to the last one…he was terrified.”

“Terrified, I can understand. Why the hell would he be hopeful?”

This time, Moody did swallow. And got a thin gash across his neck for his trouble. “You…have to understand. Albus…he’s spent years battling his inner nature. The real reason he refused to fight Grindelwald…is that he was terrified of what he could accidentally do. That his control might slip, even for a moment. It’s the real reason he became a teacher…a diplomat…a politician. If he confined himself to the battles done with words and speeches…there was less of a chance he’d do something he’d regret.”

“Yes, I’m well aware of the great Albus Dumbledore’s capability for _regret._ Get to the point.”

“When he saw…when he saw how you handled them, talking first, violence only when that failed…and never losing control up until the very end…he saw someone that could maybe, just maybe, do the job he feared he couldn’t. Deal with the Knights, while he dealt with their backers. Speak softly, and carry a big stick, that’s what I told him. Albus would never willingly let himself be the stick, but if someone else, someone better than he, could do it, without losing control…then he would do everything he could to ensure that the stick got everything they could possibly need…and he would do his part to protect them.”

Harry hissed. “I’m not your bloody _stick.”_

“No. Albus and I both figured that out right about the time you ripped that guy’s face off. You’re your own person; and nether of us can make you do anything; all we can do is ask…and hope.”

“Still with the hope? I thought Dumbledore would’ve given that up after my finale.”

“If you really thought that, then you don’t know Albus Dumbledore as well as you think. What he saw was someone willing to offer mercy, even though he knew exactly who the men in front of him were. That you didn’t want any witnesses to your…side-trip was…understandable. It was your ruthlessness that terrified him, more than anything else, I think. Albus…when he gets angry, his eyes start burning. When you got angry…they went completely cold. He wanted an executioner…he didn’t count on getting a free judge and jury along with it. The minute he saw you come back, the minute he realized something about you that he hasn’t even told _me_ yet, he started doing everything he could to not make you angry. He’s taken care of the DOM, for the moment. They’re tied up looking into exactly what spells you used, instead of your nonexistent backstory. He’s started putting together a coalition in the Wizengamot that knows whats _really_ going on; they’re doing everything they can to buy time for Dumbledore to find out how deep the rot in the Ministry goes. He’s hoping that by giving you what you want, doing whatever you ask…he’ll earn even a sliver of the mercy that you might have given.”

“Might have? _Might have?_ What I did _was_ a mercy, Mad-Eye. It was what I offered him in the first place that would have been a torture.”

“Well then. All the more reason for Albus to go on hoping, don’t you think?”

Slowly, the sword moved away from Moody’s throat. “We’ll see. I promised you a body; can you stomach another one of my…masterpieces?”

“Now that I know what to expect? Yes.”

_THUMP!_

“…That’s Greyback, alright.”

“You sure? It could be just another random werewolf…”

“No, no, I’m quite sure.”

“Positive? Come on, take just one more look…”

“No thanks, I’d rather keep my breakfast if its all the same to you.”

“Fine. Be that way.”

Back into the sack the body went, Moody breathing a sigh of relief as it vanished.

“You’re looking a little green there, Mad-Eye. Why don’t we head up to the house and get you something to drink?”

Moody could only nod and follow.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore had, very wisely, decided to leave his wand on the table.

He gestured to the tea-set resting next to it. “Missus Willis was quite insistent I take refreshments; and even more so that you do the same when you had concluded your…business.”

Harry took the seat directly across from the elder wizard. “Wards are all up, I assume?”

“Can’t you feel them?”

“When I said there were only two wizards I knew of who could feel my weapon’s aura, I meant it. I know just enough about wards to efficiently rip them down; hence the need for a professional to put them up.”

“I would have thought someone with your level of…skill would be able to detect them, at the very least.”

“Oh, I can tell _something’s_ there; just not what. Most times I can hazard a guess, like Anti-Apparition or Anti-Portkey. For everything else, I just use a multi-purpose ward-breaker.”

“And what would that be?”

Harry grinned. “A really big bomb.”

“Ah.”

“Quite.”

Dumbledore glanced in the direction of their only other company. “Is there a particular reason Alastor is shaking his tea cup quite badly…or one for the bright red line across a rather vital area, for that matter?”

“Oh, that’s easy. You see, Mad-Eye here was more than willing to enlighten me as to exactly what events the two of you took part in yesterday.”

Dumbledore sighed. “I rather thought he might…which is why I have taken the liberty of disarming myself. Not that I believe that particular wand would ever be able to affect you, much less harm you in any way.”

“Hmm. Figured it out then, have you?”

“…Yes. Whatever you need of mine, you are more than welcome to it. Even my wand, should it be necessary.”

“It won’t. I’m outside the laws of causality now.”

“I rather suspected you would be.”

Moody finally made his presence in the conversation known. “If you two are gonna keep being all mysterious, that’s fine by me, but I reserve the right to get some answers to things I _can_ understand.”

Harry took a sip from his tea. “Fire away.”

“You said that what you had offered to…that fellow…was torture, and what you actually ended up doing was mercy. Mind explaining that?”

“It’s simple. I offered him the chance to defect. If he worked for me, I’d keep him safe from his former Lord, and after everything was over, I’d ensure he’d never pay for any of the crimes he’d committed.”

“And how, exactly, was that torture?”

Harry put down his cup. “Are you familiar with how the Dementors came to be?”

Shaking heads from both of his listeners.

“I thought not. Its not a story the DOM would tell you. In the old day, and I mean _old,_ old days, there was a group of Atlantean mages who, naturally, wanted to live forever. Through interactions with something called the Vault of Glass, a doorway to an infinite number of realities and universes, they managed to predict the coming destruction of their home. So, they tried to strike a bargain. In exchange for servitude to the religion of a group of worm-gods, rulers of something known only as ‘the Deep’, they would receive eternal life…and their island would never perish. But it is best to remember when dealing with worms that everything they say has more than one meaning. The Vault of Glass was responsible for keeping Atlantis afloat; but the Atlantean mages were unaware of that. They proceeded to follow the only mandate of their new religion: to avoid being consumed by their new hunger, they had to conquer all in their path. So, they chose the most convenient target to start with: the Vault itself, and all the realities inside. The keepers of the Vault repelled the attack…and then vanished the entrance. Atlantis sunk. And the wizards who had bartered their very souls away, replaced with ones the worm-gods had fashioned in their images, were trapped at the bottom of the ocean, there to be consumed by their ever-hungry possessors. It wasn’t until an unlucky wizard discovered the location of the lost city that those abominations saw the light of day once again.”

Dumbledore frowned. “I thought that, in addition to eternal life, the worm-gods promised that the island would never perish?”

“They did. And it didn’t. It exists now, forever trapped as a memory and/or possibility in the only dust ever recovered from the Vault’s entrance on Atlantis: the so-called Sands of Time, used to power the Ministry’s Time Turners. And as long as those exist, the Dementors will forever be bound to whoever controls them. No one wants to find out what happens if they’re destroyed, least of all the Dementors. So, they follow whoever possesses the Sands, in exchange for souls to feed on…and protection of the last remnants of their home. There are _thousands_ more Dementors, still trapped down at the bottom of the ocean, waiting for their island empire to rise once more. The DOM have no intentions of allowing that to happen, but they can do their best to keep the location safe. Or did you think it was coincidence that Azkaban was built where it was?”

Moody’s green look was back. “How did you find all this out?”

“Truthfully? I think you’ll find that all information has a price in Durmstrang.”

Dumbledore’s voice held no warmth in it. “And just exactly what was the price for this particular information?”

“A rematch. But that’s neither here nor there. To get back on topic, I believe you asked how what I proposed to Mister Yaxley could be considered could be counted as torture?”

“…Yes.”

“Its simple. The Lord of the Knights has developed a…mark. One gifted only to his most faithful followers. It’s a milder version of what was done to the Atlantean mages, but one that ensures almost faultless loyalty of the mind, if not the soul. The problem is, with a mark like that, there are only two ways to remove it: kill whoever granted it, or…replace it with something even stronger. Since I can’t currently kill the maker, I would’ve had to do what the worm-gods did: replace his will with my own. Take him, with a capital T, and make him _mine._ The only reason I would’ve hesitated is that I don’t want to give the Knights’ Lord any more bright ideas. In the end, I’m glad Yaxley decided to fight. Felt a lot better about condemning his soul than Taking it, let me tell you.”

There was nothing but horror on Dumbledore’s face. “You would’ve turned him into a _Dementor._ ”

“To ensure his loyalty? Yes. But seeing as how that wasn’t necessary, and I was still able to wring a good deal of information out of him before he died, I’d call that a win.”

“You would truly have gone that far?”

Harry frowned. “I’d like to point out that the other side went that far first. In other ways as well as this one.”

Moody’s gruff tone cut him off. “And who, exactly, _is_ this ‘other side’? We know they have a leader; but _who?_ Who would even _dream_ of doing this sort of thing?”

Harry leaned back in his chair. “A very talented wizard. One who worked his way up from the very bottom of Slytherin House, graduated as Head Boy with an award for…’Special Services’ to the school…and then disappeared, planning his rise as England’s new Dark Lord.”

White was the only color left on the aged Headmaster’s face.

Moody failed to notice his friend’s distress in his burning desire to know the truth. “Who, lad? Tell us! Who?!”

“Why…”

Harry’s eyes met Dumbledore’s.

“…Tom Riddle, of course.”


	7. What Are You Going To Do?

I own nothing. Least of all this.

7) WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

“So.” Dumbledore’s whisper seemed to fill the entirety of the room. “Tom has finally shown his true colors, then.”

Harry shrugged. “Sure, you could put it that way. Personally, I just think it’s a matter of him finally throwing off the last restraints of civility that he willingly burdened himself with.”

“In order to hide his true nature.” Dumbledore rebutted.

“in order to survive. There’s a difference, Headmaster. One that sometimes I’m not entirely sure you’re aware of.”

“Then by all means, enlighten me.”

“Imagine this, if you will Mad-Eye.” Harry turned his attention to the other participant in the conversation. “Say…you grew up alone, never knowing who your parents were, surrounded by other children just as family-less as you. Say further that occasionally, unexplainable things just…happened around you, whenever you were under great strain or feeling a particularly strong emotion. Suppose that the other children you were forced to live with came to fear you for these things that you couldn’t control, afraid that some day you would do some unspeakable thing to them for a perceived slight. They beat you down, stole what little you could call yours, all to keep you from getting any ideas as to what you could do if you put your mind to it. But put your mind to it you did. You couldn’t steal back what they’d stolen, not at first, so you bartered for it, with things that you’d stolen in return. You managed to work your way up in the insular society you resided in, and if anyone ever threatened your position…well, needs must when the devil drives. You had finally gotten things moderately under control, keeping the peace not just between yourself and your adversaries, but among every single one of your fellow orphans. All by becoming the one responsible for the only currency available in place of coin: stolen goods. Other people still possessed some of the things that were originally stolen from you, but you’d collected some of theirs in return, so everything was just fine and dandy. Until one day…when an outsider to your little world comes to call. One who’s first interaction is with one of the people that just so happens to despise your…freakishness, and blames you for every single thing gone wrong, no matter the good you’ve managed to accomplish, no matter that you were merely doing what you needed to survive. This outsider immediately believes the worst of you, and by means of an example, they proceed to set fire to every earthly possession you have, snuff it out again, and then give a speech on how ‘stealing is wrong’, and you should return everything you have managed to acquire thusly. Tell me, Mad-Eye: what lessons would you learn from such a speech?”

Moody thought. Long and hard, he thought. “I suppose…that no matter how powerful you are, there’s always someone more powerful than you?”

Harry held up a finger. “That’s one. Continue.”

“And…whoever is more powerful can impose whatever moral and legal system they like on you, and there’s not a thing you can do about it except…become more powerful than them?”

Another finger. “Go on.”

“And…since becoming more powerful inevitably involves struggle, and there will always be those looking to become stronger than you, any peace, no matter how hard you’ve worked for it, will never last?”

Harry threw both hands up in the air. “Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! You have successfully deduced that until you become the most powerful person in existence, you will forever be surviving by someone else’s rules, and from the moment you begin _making_ the rules, you are immediately target numero uno to anyone and everyone looking to do the same. Congratulations; you have done the exact same thing that one Tom Riddle Junior did upon his acceptance in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…and upon his meeting with the very man who now sits in front of you.”

Slowly, Moody turned to face Dumbledore with a look of horror on his face. “Albus…tell me you didn’t…”

Dumbledore responded in the same unwavering monotone he had been using since Harry’s revelation. “I did what I thought best at the time, Alastor.”

Harry snorted. “What you thought best. That’s funny. I’ve been to Hell and back, brother. And let me tell you, the road there’s paved with _exactly_ what they say it is. The creator of that aura-outputting weapon you came face-to-face with earlier found that out, the hard way. And now, hopefully, you’ve done the same. But I rather doubt it.”

* * *

Charlus Potter came flying out of the Floo, wand and shield both up. Seconds later, his companion arrived behind him, in a much more dignified manner.

“Really, Charlus.” Cygnus drawled. “I’m beginning to think your family is as cursed in the department of magical transportation as it is in the area of personal grooming.”

“And I’d be tempted to agree with you.” grumbled Charlus from his landing place on the floor. “Give a man a hand up, will you?”

_Swish…_

“I said HAND up, not WAND up!”

“Honest mistake, I assure you.”

“Excuse me, sirs.” The bartender was doing his best to stifle his laughter. “Was there anything I could do for you gentlemen? A drink? Bit late for breakfast, and a bit early for lunch…”

Cygnus replaced his wand in its holster. “Thank you, no. We were actually looking for some…information.”

The bartender perked up at that. “Oh? About what?”

Charlus dusted himself off. “We were hoping that, provided this is the Green Dragon pub…”

“Aye,” the bartender stated proudly. “It is.”

“…In that case, we were wondering if you could, perchance, tell us…where can we find a wizard by the name of…Zarathos?”

Charlus hadn’t seen anyone move that fast since the War. He crossed his eyes, trying to look past the wand in his face to its wielder. “Ah. Friends of his then, I take it?”

The bartender shrugged, but never moved his wand. “He took care of our local wolf problem; take that however you like.”

Cygnus’ sophisticated tone came from behind him. “I’d like to point out that while you may currently have my associate at a disadvantage, I am under no such condition. And I’m afraid that there’s simply no way you can manage to take the both of us before either he or I liquefy your skeleton.”

The bartender smirked. “I agree. That’s what my friend behind you’s for.”

Cygnus frowned. “What friend behind us?”

There was the click of a safety being released. A rough voice chuckled. “The one with the shotgun, of course.”

“Shotgun?” Charlus frowned. “Ah. A Muggle then, I take it.”

“S’right, governor. And I served in the same War my friend in front of you did, even if not exactly on the same side. S’how I met my witch of a wife, no offense meant. So when I say I know _exactly_ how many blasts it’ll take to break one of your fancy schmancy shields, believe me.”

“I see. So,” Cygnus swallowed. “What, pray tell, are you going to do to us?”

“Me? Nothing. But my very good friend Mister Zarathos, the professional that saved my family from Fenrir Greyback, the person who at this very moment is getting my home and family the best wards on the market, and the man who told me exactly what to do should anyone come looking for him while my family wasn’t yet secure, _that_ Zarathos…I imagine he’ll do quite a number of things to you, that is if you don’t tell him anything and everything he could possibly want to know.”

Charlus was very careful to only wink one eye at a time, keeping the other trained on the glowing tip still obscuring his vision. “I don’t suppose we could start telling you some of that anything and everything in exchange for that drink you mentioned earlier?”

The bartender shared a look with his accomplice, and then shrugged. “It can’t hurt your odds. And who knows? Tell us enough, and we _may_ even be persuaded to let you sit down without being tied up.”

Cygnus and Charlus both immediately began to make their appreciation known for that particular gesture quite empathically. And vocally.

* * *

“My Lord.”

“Rise, Rookwood. What news do you bring?”

“My Lord, Albus Dumbledore has conferred with the Head of my Department. For now, all investigation into this Zarathos has been halted. Instead, all of our efforts are to be concentrated on determining the origins of the magic he demonstrated, and if that fails, to create spells of our own that can replicate the effects.”

“Curious. Dumbledore did not provide any information on either the wizard _or_ his attacks?”

“No my Lord, but he did let slip that he knows at least one of Zarathos’ secrets, if nothing more.”

“And the fact that Dumbledore knows something he does not will drive Croaker mad, I imagine.”

“You would be correct, my Lord.”

“Hmm. Dumbledore’s slip has given us an opening, Rookwood. You are to use Croaker’s competitive nature as an excuse for research into the secret the old fool was referencing, one that we already know the nature of. If you find anything, delay reporting it to any other but me. My previous orders stand to cover all other matters for the time being.”

“Understood my Lord. My Lord, if I may be so bold as to make a request?”

“Very well, Rookwood. But just the one.”

“My Lord, if I might view the Pensieve memory of our forces’ first encounter with Zarathos, it might expose more avenues of research for me to peruse.”

“An excellent suggestion, Rookwood. And something I am ashamed to admit that I had overlooked entirely. I believe the memory is still to be found in the Pensieve; if not, have one of the others retrieve it for you from the vault. Return with useful observations or conclusions from your viewing, and I shall grant you the reward that I spoke of earlier.”

“I thank you, my Lord.”

* * *

By now, Harry was the only one actually paying any attention at all to his cup of tea. The other two wizards were more than a bit preoccupied. One with regret, the other with…

“So lad, what exactly were you planning to do about his Dark Lord-edness? What about his followers? Hit his bases first, or pick and choose supporters to send a message? Are you striking hard and fast, or are you in this for the long haul?”

…Curiosity.

“One question at a time, Mad-Eye! Crikey, its like a kid on Christmas. Christmas crack. Least that’s what Eli used to called it, before the Dawning was a thing…”

“Stay on topic, lad! And answer the bloody questions!”

“Say please, first.”

“Fine! Please!”

“See? All you had to do was ask politely. Now, as to the first: I intended to kill him. But not for awhile yet. His followers need to be wiped out first; I don’t want any jumping ship after I wipe the floor with him and claiming they were under the Imperius or some other such nonsense. His bases aren’t the best place to start; not very public. We need people to know exactly what we’re doing, and that there’s nothing they or he can do to stop it. So only specific, high-profile targets from now on. Last night was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but it gives you the right idea. Speaking of last night, I don’t suppose I can persuade you to split the reward in half? Half for me, and half to the Willis family for their…discomfort.”

“Aye lad, we can do that. In what Gringotts account should we plonk the gold?”

“No Gringotts. There could be an item in there I need to retrieve, and I may have to make a messy exit on my way out.”

“Keeping your cash where you can get to it, eh?”

“That…and the fact that I haven’t had a Gringotts account in some time rather makes it difficult for me to make a deposit.”

“And I’m sure that even if you _did_ happen to have an account, you would be a might leery of putting your official name down on anything that even smelled of officialdom, am I right?”

Harry’s smile couldn’t have cut butter. “I’m quite sure I have no idea what you mean, Auror Moody.”

Moody shivered. “Agree to never use that face or tone with me again, lad, and I’ll even see what I can do to keep the Willis’ name out of the report.”

“It’s a deal.”

It was at that moment that Dumbledore rejoined the conversation. “By your remarks about a lack of any Gringotts account associated with you, might I assume you a are a little hard up for funds at the moment?”

“You could say that. Technically, I can permanently conjure whatever currency I need at the given moment, but seeing as how some of the things I’m going to do will invariably end up being quite expensive, I really don’t feel it would be all that fair to the economy.”

Moody snorted. “Seeing as how the most likely supporters of our Dark Lord just so happen to be the ones _running_ the economy, forgive me if I don’t feel much in the way of charity.”

“Who said anything about charity? I was planning on stealing whatever I could get from my victims; most people talk quite a lot when confronted with the fact that their death might be a lot closer than they imagined.”

* * *

Not far away, the ‘guests’ of a bartender and his Muggle accomplice both shivered at the exact same moment.

* * *

Moody grinned. “And that sort of talking invariably ends up including details of certain bank accounts.”

Dumbledore gave a groan and buried his head in his hands. “For Merlin’s sake, Alastor, you’re an _Auror._ You should most certainly _not_ be discussing the robbing and looting of the estates of assassinated members of our society out loud.”

“And what, exactly, has the Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump been doing for the past day and a half?”

Dumbledore raised his head just enough to glare quite effectively.

“I’ve been seeing that glare on your face since I was eleven years old, Albus, you can give up on ever getting it to work on me.”

“Never, old friend. And to get back to the main topic, which was procuring sufficient funds for your purposes, I don’t suppose I could talk you out of relieving half of the Wizengamot of their pocketbooks as well as their lives if I were to offer an alternative means of gainful employment? This one would be quite legal, I assure you. And furthermore, it would give the public the opportunity to put a face to your name, as well as for their children to see what an upstanding member of society you can be.”

Silence.

“Oh no. You wouldn’t…I take it back, you would. Ho boy, you really would. Correction, you just did.”

Moody held up a finger. “Scuse me if I missed it, but just what exactly did Albus really do just now?”

“He offered me the bloody Professorship of Defense Against the Dark Arts is what he did. Knowing full well there’s a curse on the bloody job.”

Dumbledore frowned. “While there have been some strange occurrences associated with the position, I can assure you that they are just that: coincidences.”

“Ten Galleons says you’re wrong. Muggleborn getting killed while having a cry in the bathroom? That’s a coincidence. How many professors ‘vacating the position’ in the years following old Tom’s interview for the job? A coincidence? I think not.”

“…I had always assumed that Tom chose to kill the young Miss Myrtle purposefully.”

“Really? _That’s_ the part of the sentence you focus on?” Harry sighed. “And no, it was most definitely _not_ purposeful. You know quite well how much Tom loved Hogwarts; he would never do anything that would jeopardize his place there. Tell me, I assume the rumors of the Chamber of Secrets being opened originated in the Slytherin Common Room?”

“They did.”

“Did that knowledge ever pass beyond the walls of said Common Room?”

“If it did, it was only to the parents of the other Slytherin students.”

“Some of whom were probably on the Board of Governors, I would imagine.”

“They were.”

“And if, say, those same Governors were to ever be granted an excuse to examine the entirety of Hogwarts quite thoroughly, hoping to be vaunted as the discoverer of a lost part of the castle, one of the last remnants of their House Founder’s legacy? Tom never came to one of his pet teachers with his discovery, did he?”

“No, no he did not.”

“There you have it, then. Tom would one, never have done anything that could hurt Hogwarts itself, and two, never have given anyone the opportunity to swoop his discovery out from under him. That your Groundskeeper happened to have an Acromantula on the grounds was merely bad luck all around. For the Slytherin Governors, because there was the possibility a half-breed had stolen something from their House’s legacy, for Tom, because it meant he could never reveal his greatest achievement openly, and for Hagrid…well, we all know why for Hagrid. There are other reasons Tom probably never meant for Miss Myrtle to die, but we’ll get into those at a later date. For now, there’s only question burning in my mind: why, Albus Dumbledore, have you been unsuccessful in your efforts to locate the Chamber of Secrets for over twenty years, when it took merely four for Tom Riddle to find it?”

Dumbledore was silent.

“I’ll tell you why: it’s because you, Albus Dumbledore, are a bloody coward. Now, there are times when cowardice is a virtue. It makes choosing a course very simple. But when a young woman has died? When a Dark Lord is rampaging over all of Europe? When Muggles are killing millions of their fellow countrymen on his orders, and loving it? Those…those are not the times for cowardice.”

Moody nodded. “Well said, lad.”

“Now, I know you have good reasons for your regret. More so than most. But your regret does not give you the right to try and force others to feel the same, even at the cost of human life. Tom Riddle might have shown regret for what he had done, once upon a time. But now? After what I know for a fact he has done to himself? To his very soul? It will never happen. He has to be put down, like a mad dog. Can I do that, and trust you not to interfere in whatever acts I may carry out, whatever costs I may inflict upon my own being?”

“…No. But I shall try my best to let you do as you see best…that is your right. I shall merely…offer what help I can, whenever you ask it. No more; no less.”

“Good. You’ve been honest with me; that deserves some honesty in return. I may be able to locate the Chamber, and deal with what lives in it; I stress, _may._ I may take the job; once again I stress, _may._ If I were to do so, what would you recommend I acquire as far as a resume goes?”

“No resume needed. I can mark this down as your interview; what has passed between us is our business, and none else’s. If you agree to accept the offer, all that will happen is your acceptance goes to the Board of Governors, who will then set a time and date for you to answer whatever questions they may ask, in whatever manner you prefer.”

“They may not like what answers I give them.”

“As you said, considering the lack of competent, long-lasting instructors, they cannot afford to be picky.”

“True.” Harry finished draining his cup, set it back down on the table, and then stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a previous appointment, and I’d hate to be late.”

Dumbledore gave a half-hearted sigh. “I see. To which family should we address our condolences this time?”

“Not that kind of appointment, I’m afraid. Unless I’m lucky. And anyone that’s ever known me will tell you quite emphatically that I’m not.”

Moody rose from his seat as well. “Debatable. But we’d hate to keep you any longer than needed.”

Dumbledore nodded. “I quite agree. However, before you go, there are two short matters I wish to discuss.”

“And those are?”

“First, you may wish to acquire some more…traditional looking robes. The Governors can be quite a…snobbish bunch. They respect fashion that displays more of tradition than it does any evidence of experience or prowess.”

“As to be expected. The second matter?”

“Yes; as to the second…its more of a question than anything else. One that I shall not mind if you do not wish to answer.”

Harry grimaced. “The fact that you had to clarify that tells me that any reluctance to answer on my part would reveal more to you than anything I could ever say aloud. Fine; ask away.”

“…Why now?”

“…I beg your pardon?”

“You said yourself that you’re no longer bound by the laws of causality. I assume that applies to Time as well?”

“…It does.”

“So, I reiterate: why now? Why did you choose this particular time to interfere? You could have chosen any moment in history, any moment at all. You could have done any number of things to the past; for instance, you could have taken in Tom Riddle when he was young, taught him what he failed to learn.”

“Tom Riddle never once in his life failed to learn anything, I’m afraid. All he lacked was the proper perspective to frame his knowledge. One I would never have been able to provide. And as to why now…most people think of Time as a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, its more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly…timey-wimey…stuff.”

Moody chuckled. “Started out well, that sentence.”

“It…got away from me, yeah. Long story short, I wasn’t actually aiming for now. Despite what either of you may think, I haven’t actually been at this job for too long. Least not that particular part of it. The fact that I ended up when and where I did…well, I haven’t ruled out Destiny as an entity yet. And considering the stories associated with some of the darker pieces in my armory…I think its safe to say there’s something bigger than any of us out there at work. One that enjoys a good story. And isn’t that the most any of us can hope for at the end of the day? To be remembered as a story worth telling?”

Dumbledore pushed himself to his feet. “You tell us. Or don’t. I bid you a good day, Mister Zarathos.”

“You as well, Mister Dumbledore. Mister Moody.”

“Take care of yourself, lad. But make sure to take care of those Knights first.”

Harry gave a jaunty salute. “Sir, yes sir.”

“Cheeky blighter. Well, Albus; where to?”

“Back to Hogwarts, I think Alastor. It should make things significantly harder for any hoping to track our Apparition back to our origin.”

“Fine. But you’ll have to Side-Along me; you’re the only one that can Apparate on the grounds.”

Harry held up a finger. “Not quite the only one, I think. But that’s a story for another time.”

As the two wizards disappeared with a pop of displaced air, Harry just managed to catch Dumbledore’s last words over the cracking sound. “I look forward to it…”

And for a brief moment, Harry was alone in the room.

He was joined very shortly after by his host.

Mrs. Willis’ face was still quite red from blushing. “Cor, of all the people for you to get to ward our house, I never expected you to get _Albus ruddy Dumbledore._ ”

Harry snorted. “Truth be told, neither did I. That’s what I get for trusting Mad-Eye to not go overboard. Gun wasn’t too heavy was it?”

Mrs. Willis gently placed the gold-inlaid hand cannon down on the table. “Course not; its got nothing on what my husband had to carry in the War.”

“I’d imagine not.”

“Don’t you dare follow that statement up with a remark about how its meant to be a lighter version of what _you_ carry. I can’t stand sexism, even when it comes to the fine sport of shooting.”

“No, no, that particular model and the one that I carry are similarly weighted, but quite different in purpose. Quite different indeed…now, I imagine you’re quite anxious to reunite with your family.”

“You could say that.”

“Right. I really don’t want to Apparate out of here back to the pub; and it’s a bit long by broom or car…so we’ll be using my way instead.”

His companion followed him out the door and onto the lawn. “And what, exactly, _is_ your way?”

A thunderous boom echoed overhead. “The flashy one. Just one bit of advice…”

“Yes?”

“…Keep your eyes wide shut.”

* * *

Harry looked from the bartender, to Mr. Willis, and back again. “I thought I told you two to tie up any and all visitors you got of the unwelcome kind.”

The bartender scratched his head. “Well, you see brother, its like this…I can’t exactly call either of them unwelcome.”

“And why, pray tell, is that?”

The man on the left snorted. “Cause my family just so happens to own half of this fine establishment; and my somewhat-less-handsome-than-me companion in the chair next to mine just so happens to be my brother-in-law.”

The mentioned companion merely sniffed. “Less handsome my grandmother. And this is the first time that I’ve ever been thankful to set foot in any pub owned even partially by the illustrious Potter family.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “Did you say Potter?”

“Aye lad.” The bartender nodded. “Charlus Potter. His brother’s me landlord.”

“Hmm. And the other?”

“Calls himself Cygnus Black. Can’t say if he’s telling the truth, but he’s got the right snobbish tone of voice to go with the name.”

“That he does. Hmm. This complicates things. Never thought I’d see a Black and a Potter together for…oh, a good number of years yet. Then again…”

Harry rapped a few times on his helmet in annoyance. “Change of plans, I’m afraid. How much to rent a room, undisturbed and off the books, for the next few hours?”

“On the house, friend.”

“In that case, we’re moving this party upstairs. Once we’ve got these two situated, I’m afraid your wife is going to have to erase yours and your son’s memories, Mr. Willis. We don’t want anyone picking through your mind and finding something they shouldn’t.”

“I understand, son. Not the first time I’ve been Obliviated for my own safety.”

“Good. Now…” Harry turned his attention back to the two wizards still sitting at the bar. “What _are_ we going to do with _you_?”

“I’d suggest talking with us,” drawled the one on the left. “But seeing as how we and your two compatriots have been doing just that for the past hour, might I suggest drinking first? Not to complain, but my throat is feeling more than a little bit like gravel.”

Harry blinked. “What in Merlin’s name could you have talked about for an _hour?_ I don’t think I’ve managed to get Willis here to string more than two sentences together in the admittedly brief time I’ve known him.”

The bartender snorted. “You try living through the same War as someone else and you’ll be surprised exactly how much in common you can find to talk about.”

“I _have_ lived through the same War as other people. But I never got the chance to do much talking afterwards. Still, I’ll keep that in mind for future reference.”

“What, you think there’s gonna be another war coming for you to talk about afterwards?”

Harry merely looked at the bartender. “When isn’t there?”

“…Point. Alright you two; march. I know _just_ the room for you three to get… _well-acquainted_ in _.”_

Neither Charlus nor Cygnus cared particularly for either the tone of the bartender’s voice or the smile on his face as he said it.

Not. One. Bit.


	8. Bung A Rock At It

I own nothing. Least of all this.

8) BUNG A ROCK AT IT

The door to the room clicked shut behind the three of them.

At first, the bartender had wanted to join and make the number an even four, but when Harry had pointed out that one, he was quite capable of dealing with two self-important wizards who spent more time polishing their wands than using them; two, they still needed someone downstairs to deal with any unexpected guests; and three, he still had a bar to run, and no bartender in the middle of the day would look extremely suspicious, the barkeep had reluctantly relented, and marched back to his post behind the taps.

Harry could hear him grumbling the whole way down the stairs.

“You’d think he would’ve gotten his fill of war-talk earlier.”

The reply from Harry’s ‘guests’ came very quickly. “Seeing as how his friend and I were the ones doing most of the talking, I’d venture to say he has not.”

The second wizard, the one calling himself Black, snorted. “Judging from the look in his eye earlier, I’d say he was hoping for more of a re-enactment than a re-telling. With us playing the part of enemy prisoners.”

Harry sank down into the cushions of a chair that hadn’t existed mere seconds before. “Well, seeing as how he does currently have both your wands, I’d say sentimentality for the old days might just have reinforced the image in his mind.”

Both wizards had paled at his casual display of magic, Black in particular. “Chair…conjure…you…wandless… _how?”_

Harry shrugged. “What, did you think it was exaggerating when I made that crack about polishing your wands earlier?”

Potter gave a nervous chuckle. “Only a little, lad; only a little.”

Harry frowned. “Okay, first off, the list of people that get off calling me ‘lad’ is extremely short; just one name on it, in fact. And yours is most definitely not it. Trust me, I’ve been around for far longer than either of you old farts, and the idea of either of you calling me ‘lad’ with a straight face is just laughable. Secondly, just what do you mean, only a little?”

Black and Potter shared a look, then squirmed in their seats. Finally, Potter gave a sigh. “We knew you were perfectly capable of ‘dealing with’ us, as you put it, because we know for a fact you’ve successfully dealt with far greater numbers than just two ‘old farts’ and come out with nary a scratch to show for it. But to go from what you did then, wandlessly, to what you did just now…that’s control on Dumbledore’s level, la…sir. ”

Potter grimaced as he said that last bit.

“Third thing, I’m not a sir either. Spent a good bit of my life being called that, and it still bugs me a might. Fourth thing, you said ‘far greater numbers’. To which…incident might you be referring, the first or the second?”

Both wizards blinked. “…What do you mean, the _second_?”

“…Well that answers that question. Now, let’s see…Black and Potter…first incident…both know…ah. I take it that ickle little Bellakins survived her meeting with old Tom, then? Or at least long enough to pass along either a description or a memory, and from there you were able to piece together…”

“That you’re a Potter?” the member of the mentioned family finished firmly. “Damn right. Only one bloodline I know of cursed with hair like that.”

Harry held up a finger. “Technically not the Potters that are cursed, you know. Just the family of one of the males that married in, and took the Potter name.”

Black nodded. “Yes, Peverell, we know. And if _we_ know, then I think its safe to say that the other…recipients of my daughter’s memory will probably deduce it as well; that is, if they haven’t already.”

Hmm. So this man was Bellatrix’s father. He could see the family resemblance. Then again, considering pureblood families, he could probably spot resemblances to every single prominent bloodline if he cared enough to look. “Good. It’ll keep old Tommy boy looking in the wrong place for answers; at least for exactly how I’m able to do what I can. And that’s all he’ll probably care about.”

Black leaned forward in his chair. “This Tom you keep mentioning. I assume this would be the same Tom Riddle you referred to in the speech you gave my daughter, yes?”

“That’s the chap. Half-blood wizard, and that only barely. Son of a Squib who used a love potion on a Muggle she fancied; she thought that after they’d married, and she was pregnant, she could afford to stop dosing him. Turns out she was wrong; he left her destitute and never once looked back. She survived just long enough to give birth, then died of a broken heart. Tom Riddle was raised in a Muggle orphanage, never knowing where he came from or what he was. Not until one Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore delivered his Hogwarts letter personally.”

“Yes, yes, heartbreaking story, but what has it got to do with Tom Riddle now?” Black interrupted. “We know from your message that Riddle’s high up in the Knights’ leadership; how in Merlin’s name did a half-blood manage _that?_ ”

Harry snorted. He chuckled. He guffawed. And finally, he disintegrated into gut-wrenching, tear-inducing laughter. “Didn’t you know? You didn’t, did you! Oh, this is _too_ good! Scratch that, this is bloody _fantastic!_ ”

Neither wizard knew just how to respond to that. But they weren’t about to let a little detail like that stop them from trying.

Potter went first. “What? What didn’t we know? Who is Tom Riddle? Really?”

That merely set Harry off even harder, if such a thing were even possible.

Black tried his luck next. “Listen my good man, this is something we absolutely _have_ to know. Not just us, but our families as well. There’s a war coming, and we need all the information we can get before we choose a side. So tell us. Please. Just how did a Muggle-raised half-blood end up a trusted associate of the Lord of the Knights?”

Harry only paused long enough between laughs to spit out his reply piecemeal. “Don’t…you…get it…yet? He… _is…_ the Dark Lord!”

The stunned silence of the two wizards was far louder than any laughter could ever hope to be.

Well, except maybe Shaxx’s.

* * *

“My Lord.”

“Rookwood. What did you find?”

“My Lord, I have reviewed the contents of the memory several times, but I have been unable to glean much of use. I feel as though there’s some important detail that I’m missing, something incredibly miniscule, but it continues to escape my grasp. I plan to return to the Pensieve at a later time with a fresh perspective; hopefully, I may be able to find what I am overlooking.”

Voldemort tightened his grip on his wand. “So, what you are saying…is that you have found… _nothing?”_

“Oh no, my Lord,” Rookwood hastily retreated. “Not nothing. Just not the something I feel to be the most critical.”

“Then tell me, Rookwood, what exactly _did_ you find?”

The Unspeakable swallowed. “My Lord…at first, I had believed this Zarathos to be…possessed.”

“Yes, the possibility had occurred to me as well. Continue.”

Rookwood ignored the Dark Lord’s interruption (wouldn’t you?). “But after careful consideration and deliberation, I believe we are dealing with something much more…dangerous. Something that, while conceivably easier to deal with for one as skilled in the Mental Arts as yourself, poses much more of a risk should things go awry.”

“Get to the point, Rookwood; my patience grows thin.”

“Apologies, my Lord. I believe that, within the wizard Zarathos, there reside _two_ distinctive personas. Two completely different people, and yet not, each forged from the halves of Zarathos’ mind.”

“…Elaborate.”

“It is a well-documented phenomena in the…Muggle world, my Lord. A traumatic event, or a series of such occurrences, can fracture the mind, leaving behind two or more separate personalities. One to deal with normal, everyday happenings…and the others to deal with more unfamiliar, potentially dangerous, situations. I believe that whatever ritual this Zarathos performed in order to gain the abilities that he has…left his identity unstable, my Lord. Whether from an inability to deal with the trauma, or perhaps an overload of magical power. So, when the traitor Yaxley managed to fell him with the Killing Curse…I believe that it was his normal side that absorbed the blow, and the ruthless side that was left in charge while his soul healed from the damage.”

Voldemort stroked his chin. “If what you say is true…then it could be that two Killing Curses, one cast right after the other, would have the required additive effects to end him permanently.”

“A possibility, my Lord, but another would be that both sides become mutually dispelled from his body…and whomever he tried to possess would have to deal with two equally powerful wills simultaneously attempting to overcome their own. Or both sides could split entirely, leaving you to face both versions of him at the same time, should they possess different people that is. And the worst possibility of all…he may have, and keep in mind that this is entirely theoretical, my Lord…he may have managed to tie his soul, or I should say, souls, to something other than his body. Perhaps the sword he wielded in the first battle…it did seem able to absorb the Killing Curse, at the very least. If not that, then perhaps something else. Something equally…indestructible.”

Had Voldemort’s blood not already been cold, it would have run so at his lieutenants’ speech. So, at least one Unspeakable knew of Horcruxes. And if one, why not all of them? Perhaps the Department of Mysteries kept them as trophies, to be experimented upon at their leisure. He barely resisted a shudder at the thought of exactly what that might entail should the Department discover one of his precautions. He began to severely rethink his decision to entrust one of them to Rookwood for safekeeping. Then again, the last place the Unspeakables would ever search for one of his soul anchors, should they learn of them, would be among their own.

Decisions, decisions, all of them wrong.

At the very least, he needed to know if the DOM had a way of permanently destroying his Horcruxes…or avoiding them altogether. “…And are you aware of a method to _un-_ tie his soul from this supposedly indestructible object?”

“My Lord, I can only conjecture. Research on such matters is beyond my rank in the Department, and will be for some time. Indeed, it may be above the rank of all that are not the Head Unspeakable. But perhaps…the Dementors might hold the key. If one were to strike Zarathos with the Killing Curse, exposing his ‘dark’ side, and then allow a Dementor to Kiss him, there exists the possibility that he would die permanently. Or at the very least be deprived of his more dangerous half, leaving you free to deal with the weakened other as you wish.”

Hmm. So, if the Unspeakables knew how to destroy Horcruxes, they weren’t telling. And the only person Croaker could ever be even slightly convinced to discuss the subject with was…Dumbledore.

Voldemort grinned. “You have brought me useful information indeed, Rookwood. I shall now fulfill my promise to you. On the table to your left is a box. Open it.”

Slowly, Rookwood made his way over to the indicated table, and gently eased the chest’s lid open, wondering what great treasure his Lord had stored within…

A gasp escaped the Unspeakable’s lips. “My Lord…this…this is…”

“Something witches and wizards have been searching for since the time of the Founders. And I, Lord Voldemort, was the first to find it. Am I not a great and generous Lord, my dear Rookwood, to entrust this item to your care?”

“You are, my Lord. But, I must ask…why have you not showed this evidence of your skill and power to your other faithful followers?”

“Because, Rookwood, faithful they may be, but they do tend to brag on my behalf. And it is not yet the right time for the Wizarding World to be reminded of the lost Cup of Hufflepuff.”

* * *

Judging by the amount of Firewhiskey he’d downed after learning Tom Riddle’s true identity, Harry would hazard a guess that Black was definitely more grateful now than he had been earlier about being in a Potter owned bar. And Potter himself was proving to be no slouch in the appreciation department either.

“You’re sure? Tom Riddle…the half-blood son of a Muggle…is not just the leader of a pureblood movement…but a full-blown _Dark Lord_ as well?”

“Well, seeing as how don’t exactly have a list of the qualifications for official Dark Lord-ering, there might be a little leeway in the exact definitions, but in terms of power? Power-wise, he could take on Dumbledore himself on a good day, and at least manage a tie. Maybe even win; it depends on how far he’s gone as of yet.”

“Why?” Black rasped. “Why in Merlin’s name would you tell us something like that? Do you have any idea…knowing who the Dark Lord truly is…do you understand how _dangerous_ that is?”

Harry shrugged. “Of course. As long as the two of _you_ understand that as well, I think we’ll get along splendidly.”

Potter looked up from his empty tumbler. “What if we don’t _want_ to understand? What if we’d rather just…forget?”

“Then I Obliviate the pair of you. Truth be told, it’s what I was planning to do anyway after this little group therapy session. Any Potters I could be bothered to associate with died long ago, and the Black family has caused me no small amount of grief in my quite eventful life. As it stands, the only reason I haven’t Obliviated-slash-killed either or both of you yet is…well, to put it bluntly, I owe a debt to a Potter-Black alliance. You have until the end of this conversation to give me a better way to pay it back. And that’s all I’m saying about that. The rest is up to you.”

A look of confusion settled on Black’s face. “As far as I know, there’s been no Potter-Black alliance in recent history.” He gave a sideways glance at his companion. “At least officially.”

Harry’s expression briefly matched Black’s before fading away in understanding. “Ah. I’m afraid that you’re correct. Not in recent history, official or otherwise. Although…I suppose you could say that the two alliances are…related, in a way.”

Harry had to smirk at his private little joke.

Potter refilled his glass. “A discussion for another time. You said we needed to convince you of a better way to pay your debt; how about this? You let us follow you, as our Lord. We’ll do whatever you ask of us, serve in any capacity you require; and all we ask is that you protect the rest of our families.”

“Define the rest.”

Black answered. “Anyone that decides not to follow…Riddle. Neutral, Light, Gray…you would protect them all from retaliation, even if they don’t side with you. If you allow us to tell our Houses the truth, and if any of them still choose the Knights and their leader…we will not ask that you extend the same mercy to them.”

Harry stroked his chin. “Survival by any means necessary, is that it? Part of your family follows Tom, part takes no side at all, and the last part would be you, I take it?”

“At the very least. My daughters as well, if you will allow it.”

Harry looked back and forth between the two wizards. “Why? What on Earth could you hope to gain from aligning with me? I said before, at the very least I owe you your own lives. You wouldn’t have to do much to get better than that; to me, it seems like you’re asking for something _worse._ Just…why?”

Potter snorted. “As you said, my man. Survival. Black’s children are practically full-grown; they can take care of themselves. If he should die, at the very least he’ll know that they’re safe. My situation’s a bit trickier; up until a few years ago, the Potter family had no heir. The closest we had was the son of my unfortunate sister who decided to marry a Malfoy, of all things.”

Black sniffed. “Unfortunate, indeed. Abraxas is a perfectly fine gentlemen, even if he is a foreigner.”

“Coming from a Black, that’s high praise indeed.” Potter sniffed right back. “The point is, that right up until eleven years ago, the Malfoy family stood to inherit the Potter wealth and seats on the Wizengamot. But now…now, I have a son. James. He’s the pride of my life, and I can’t…I can’t imagine living without him. My brother, Lucius, has named him Heir Apparent to the Headship. I’m expendable, and I always have been. But James…he needs his mother. And he needs to live. Nothing personal to the Malfoys, you understand, but we’d rather keep things in the family.”

Harry’s mind was whirling. Malfoys…Lucius…Blacks…Potters.

The Malfoy Heir was once Heir to the Potters as well…

The current Head of the Potters was named Lucius, and was it a stretch to imagine his sister named her son after him…

Draco could have been Heir to the Black family as well, through his mother Narcissa, had Harry not survived…

Three powerful names, united under one bloodline…

It was enough to drive even the most moral of people to contemplate murder. For a Malfoy, to wipe out entire families to advance your own was the most natural of courses.

Harry decided then and there to take the job of DADA professor. After all, what better way to deal with a dangerous student than to become his teacher?

A cough from Potter drew his attention back to the conversation. “Well? Do we have a deal? If not, I’m sure we can think of a few ways to further sweeten the pot.”

Harry waved him off. “No, the deal is fine. In theory. But…well, I’ve spent a lot of my life being called ‘Lord’ for one reason or another. Couldn’t we…I don’t know…call this a partnership, instead of a Lordship? If anything, I’d be getting more out of that than people asking me for orders all the time. And I’d like to see the Potter-Black alliance grow on its own, not under anyone else’s control. Even mine.”

Potter stuck his hand out immediately. “Deal.”

Black was bit more hesitant, but nevertheless did the same. “Agreed.”

Harry shook, and was surprised to feel a jolt of magic run through his body. He’d always thought that verbal magical contracts required at least one witness, more if there were multiple parties.

Black and Potter must’ve felt the jolt as well, because they were looking at each other in shock. “Well…you can change the name, but you can’t change the man…”

Harry frowned. “Pardon?”

Black’s explanation came slowly. “The only way to bind a partnership…without witnesses…or an official contract…is if…”

“Is if, what?”

Potter finished. “Is if Magic itself recognizes you as a Lord. You said you’d been called a Lord for a good part of your life…I assume you never thought it was literal?”

Harry thought back to exactly how he’d acquired the title of Iron Lord. “In the literal sense, yes. In the Magical sense, then no.”

Black corked his bottle of Firewhiskey and rose. “Well, then. There’s really only one way to know for certain. As a bonus, it has the nice byproduct of telling us if there’s any resources you’ve inherited since the last…Potter-Black alliance. And as your partners, such resources could be quite…useful, to us.”

Harry got a sinking feeling in his stomach. “And what, precisely, is this one way?”

Black grinned. “Why, a Gringotts blood test, of course.”

Harry snorted. He knew _exactly_ what the test would reveal; the only thing even remotely interesting in the results would be his full legal name. Something he would probably have to give out sooner or later if he wanted to take Dumbledore’s offered position. His bloodline? All it would give was which Houses he belonged to. His inheritances? There wouldn’t be any; the Potters had James, the Blacks had Sirius, and the Peverells had long since been absorbed. Still, if he could get something out of going along with the idea…

“Very well. But I want your word that the only people you’ll reveal the results to are your Heads of House. And then I want you to exert a little…coercion in their direction.”

Black nodded, but Potter looked wary. “Coercion? To do…what, exactly?”

“There’s a coalition forming. In both the Wizengamot and the Ministry. Dumbledore is the nominal head, but Alastor Moody and, I believe, Croaker from the DOM are involved as well. More than that, I can’t say for certain. Get your Heads to at least talk to Moody and Dumbledore about it, and I’ll take the test.”

“Why both Moody and Dumbledore?”

“Because you know as well as I do the old man’s propensity to exaggerate. Moody will tell it like it is, and then Dumbledore will smooth over any ruffled feathers afterwards.”

Potter gave a sigh. “Good enough, I suppose. I’ll try. But no guarantees.”

“I understand.”

Black waved his hand. “You need not concern yourself with my end; Orion, my brother and Head, has already agreed to view the memory of your…first incident, and then decide which side to support. I have no doubt he will choose yours. And that you wish for our family to be involved in political battles instead of the ones the Dark Lord desires to fight will be a huge selling point in your favor.”

“…Good to know. We done here?”

“For now. Did you have any matters to attend to before Gringotts?”

“Before? No. After? After…well, lets just say I may ask for your opinions on which robes would impress a certain Board of Governors the most.”

Black’s eyes lit up. “Robes, you say? Considering we know for a fact you’re acquainted with Dumbledore…might I be so bold as to assume he’s offered you the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?”

“Why yes, yes you can be so bold. So, QED, new robes.”

Black practically purred. “ _Excellent._ Both of our Heads of House just so happen to be on the Governors’ Board; impressing them will do far more than our individual efforts combined ever could. Now, as far as I can see, that leaves just one thing for us to take care of before we leave.”

“And that is?”

Black rubbed his fingers together. “I believe you have a few items of ours that need polishing?”

Harry laughed. “Right; completely forgot. Let’s just go get them back then, shall we?”

Potter gestured to the door. “After you. If that trigger-happy bartender decides to curse first and ask questions later, I’d rather it be you than me.”

Harry pointed in Black’s direction. “What about him?”

“If I had _him_ go first, and he got cursed because of it, what his sister would do to me would be far worse than anything you could ever hope to imagine.”

“I don’t know, I can imagine quite a lot.”

Black sighed. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

His answer came in the form of two simultaneous ‘no’s.

* * *

“Unless you have something important to say Albus, I’d advise you shunt off. Your stick’s got the whole place in an uproar again, and this time there won’t be any hushing it up.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Algernon.”

“Like hell. Zarathos has gone and killed off bloody _Fenrir Greyback_ ; under a full-moon and uninjured, no less. And don’t try and deny you knew, your conversation with Moody this morning was overheard by someone clever enough to go straight to a paying source with the news. By this time tomorrow, everyone will know _exactly_ what Zarathos is capable of.”

Dumbledore gulped. “Everyone?”

“Considering the Minister herself had to find out from her spies in the Prophet, I’d say so. If not everyone and their second cousin twice-removed as well. Tomorrow’s headline should be _most_ illuminating.”

“…I can imagine.”

“No Albus, I don’t believe you can. So either shunt off, or give me something useful to work with.”

Dumbledore made a snap decision. “Atlantis.”

Croaker’s voice suddenly got very low. “…What did you say, Albus?”

“Something useful to work with. To wit, the lost island of Atlantis.”

Croaker’s wand shot out, casting spell after spell on the room around. After about three minutes of continuous warding, he finally turned his wand on the only other occupant of the office. “Talk.”

“Did you, by chance, happen to know the origin of the Dementors, Algernon?”

“…Yes.”

“Hmm. Well, I must confess I did not. Not until Zarathos saw fit to enlighten me, that is.”

“…I see.”

“No, no you don’t, Algernon. He knew it all. From the Vault of Glass, to Azkaban itself. I believe he has managed to replicate at least some of the few scattered recordings of feats accomplished on that accursed island. And you know as well as I that they were the last magical society capable of true magic without wands or staffs. If he knows the truth of what happened there, perhaps what he’s doing now is his idea of preventing it from happening again. I already know for a fact the Knights’ leader has delved into the same sort of soul magic; Moody tells me there was a Mark on Greyback’s arm that practically screamed aloud under his examination. I would advise you look into the matter more closely, for any references to lost knowledge or abilities. It may be we have to employ Zarathos’ methods if we are to succeed against such an enemy.”

“Or if we are ever forced to succeed against _him.”_

“…You are entitled to think that, yes.”

“Hmm. Fine. Even if you’ve given us a dead end, it’ll keep the Minister off our backs should he ask us to look into your stick’s background. And I think the mention of Atlantis will be enough to convince her how serious the situation is. Good day to you, Chief Warlock.”

“Good day, Head Unspeakable.”

For a brief moment, Dumbledore regretted saying what he had. But they _needed_ the DOM to look into Tom Riddle’s experiments, if for no other reason than for the chance of finding a way to remove that infernal Mark. He had avoided mentioning Durmstrang; he had no desire to cause an international incident, and Zarathos deserved at least _that_ much privacy. But if Tom Riddle had found at least some of the same knowledge Zarathos had, then they would have to prepare to fight it. He would, of course, consult his own extensive library on the subject. And wasn’t there a Muggle saying about how two sets of eyes were better than one?

Then again, there was another that espoused the belief of there being only one guaranteed way for two people to keep a secret as well.


	9. Great Men Are Forged In Fire

I own nothing. Least of all this.

_Yes, this is the obligatory “Harry goes to Gringotts chapter”. Believe me, I tried extremely hard to keep this out of the story, but my writing had other ideas. That being said, I did try to keep it as short as possible. So if the chapter seems a bit abrupt, my apologies. And now, back to our irregularly scheduled programming._

9) GREAT MEN ARE FORGED IN FIRE

Harry swiveled in his extremely uncomfortable chair, and leveled a glare at the current cause of his discomfort. “I do not suppose you could speed things up?”

Cygnus Black merely sighed in response. “Those who value their continued well-being would do well to avoid rushing a Goblin. I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait.”

Harry resumed his previous precarious position with a grumble. “I hate waiting.”

Deep down, he felt somewhat vindicated knowing that his sentiments were probably echoed by most if not all of his fellow waiting-room occupants.

For the longest time, Harry had never really understood why it was that Binns had seemed unable to drone on and on about any other subject than Goblin Rebellions. That is, until he actually picked up a decent history book capable of explaining things in such a way that even the slowest of individuals could grasp exactly how much power the Goblins held over Wizarding Britain, and what they had done to gain it.

That he’d picked up said book about a couple thousand years _after_ it would have done him any good was besides the point (he was still more than a bit miffed about his History of Magic OWL, even without taking into consideration the whole Ministry debacle that came after).

Long story short, it had only been after about seven chapters and well over three hundred pages that that he had finally understood exactly why it was that Wizarding Britain seemed so fixated on the threat of a Goblin uprising: the last one had _succeeded._ And what’s more, it had gotten the Goblins every single thing they wanted.

The Ministry had been forced to hand over control of the entire economy, lock, stock, and barrel. To say nothing of the rights to conduct banking itself. And all to a race that would like nothing better than to leave each and every one of its enemies destitute and penniless. The only reason the Goblin nation as a whole, and Gringotts in particular, had so far failed in that particular goal was quite simple: as beings related to the Fae, they were completely unable to tell an out-and-out lie.

Harry sometimes wondered if the Ahamkara were more closely related to the Fae than they were to dragons or Basilisks.

To sum up, the Wizarding World on the whole lived in fear that the next time the Goblins got it in their collective heads that a little bit of pillage and plunder were in order, they might come away with more than just regulation of the currency flow. Something a little more “in-your-face’ kind of dangerous; like, say, I don’t know, the legal right to own and wield wands.

Harry, of course, knew better. Not only was it _completely_ impossible for a Goblin to even wield a wand (the fact that they suffused their entire bodies with their magic instead of forcing it through a focal point was one reason), but in the entire history of Britain, the goblins had only ever gone to war for one very specific thing: treasure. To take someone’s entire wealth away from them, to ruin them entirely, whether they be alive or dead, was the greatest of accomplishments for a Goblin. Hence why Gringotts employed an extensive team of both enchanters and curse-breakers. Enchanters to do the more delicate work on Runes for the bank’s safety precautions and warding services, and curse-breakers to deal with…well, to put it bluntly, wizards on the whole tended to have the nasty habit of dying and taking the secrets of the location and access methods to their accumulated treasure right along with them into the afterlife. And while Goblin-made weapons could do a lot, there were just some wards they couldn’t cut through without destroying what was under them. Especially in places like Ancient Egypt. And just the fleeting possibility that all of that gold, silver, jewelry, etcetera, could be removed forever from the economy…the very idea was unbearable to the Goblins. So, Gringotts brought in outside specialists to locate and break through all those nasty wards and traps that only a wand-wielder could safely dismantle. And until the day came when Gringotts possessed enough power to set the rates for treasure-recovery themselves, rather than the wizards, things would continue as they had for the last two centuries.

You would think that after a few centuries dealing with beings that made Goblins look like crooked poker dealers, Harry would’ve learned _exactly_ how to get what he wanted from the little buggers in a timely fashion. And yet here he was, sitting and squirming under the harsh lighting of a Goblin waiting-room, as no doubt quite a large number of the blighters scurried around behind the scenes, trying to dig up any and all possible ways to financially screw over the guest of both Cygnus Black and Charlus Potter.

A grimy and grungy looking Goblin chose that very moment to stick his head in the room. “Black and Potter?”

Cygnus and Charlus both rose; Harry thought it best to follow. “That’s us.”

The Goblin gave a grunt. “This way. And be quick about it.”

Well, it looked like _someone_ was in desperate need of an attitude adjustment.

Nevertheless, Harry said nothing as he followed his guides deeper into the bowels of the bank. He was somewhat pleased to note that once in the corridors, the harsh lights were replaced with dim ones. An obvious attempt to induce the feeling of sleepiness in the Goblins’ customers after spending so much time in waiting rooms, which would then lead to poorer decision making on the part of the vic…hmm, hmm, the _clients_. Psychological warfare. Harry was beginning to look forward to engaging in a battle of wits with whatever poor sap had been saddled with testing his blood.

That was until they were led into a room even dingier than the hallway they had just left. And apparently, the room’s sleep-inducing properties had begun to work on its occupant. Sitting behind a desk piled massively high with paperwork was the tiredest-looking Goblin that Harry had ever seen (true, it wasn’t a staggering number or anything, but still).

The Goblin’s eyelids barely opened to take in his new guests. “Blood test?”

All three men nodded.

“Sit. Bowl’s in front of you. Knife on palm. And don’t use wand to heal.”

With that out of the way, the Goblin proceeded to look back down at…whatever he had been looking at when they’d come in. As he did so, Harry could have sworn he heard a snore.

So much the better. If the Goblins had failed to learn anything useful about him while they had been waiting (probable), then he had no value to them. And so they’d shuffled him off to one of the least-respectable Goblins imaginable, saving their more useful negotiators for bigger things. Either that, or this _was_ one of their best negotiators, with a near perfect disguise. Harry wasn’t ruling out the possibility.

He shrugged, and reached out for the bowl. One swift cut later, and a palm-full of blood fell into the bottom. He gently placed it back where it had been resting, and then clenched his fist. No need for the Goblins to know he was perfectly capable of magically healing without a wand, after all.

The second the bowl hit the desk, the previously snoozing Goblin came back to life with a snort. He leaned over, slid the bowl back towards himself, and then tilted it into a metal tray lined with parchment that had seemed to come from nowhere. Black and Potter both flinched at that; Harry did not. He had seen the Goblin move his opposite hand underneath the desk; an activation of some sort. The odds of this being a formidable opponent in the subterfuge department had just escalated immensely.

Harry had to resist the urge to grin.

The blood flowed out of the goblet and onto the parchment, swirling and twisting this way and that. When it finally seemed to stop moving, Black, Potter, and Harry all leaned forward to see exactly what the test had revealed.

_Harry James Potter_

_Member of House Potter (Active)_

_Member of House Black (Active)_

_Member of House Gaunt (Defunct)_

_Member of House Peverell (Defunct)_

_Lord Zarathos of the Iron Lords_

_Owner of Vault #666_

Hmm. It seemed Moody had put the Vault under his pseudonym; and the irony of the vault number wasn’t lost on him. He’d have to ask Moody later if he had chosen it on purpose. Everything else seemed to be…in…order.

Harry’s eyes latched onto the last result the test had yielded.

_Dredgen Thule_

_Lord of House Dredgen (Active)_

…Bollocks.

Harry’s gaze snapped up…and met the answering stare of the Goblin across from him. Definitely more than just a low-on-the-totem-pole underling, then.

Double bollocks.

Ah, well. At least he knew he had a worthy opponent. He cleared his throat.

“I don’t suppose there’s anyway I can persuade you to forget you ever saw this document; or me either, for that matter?”

The Goblin, to Harry’s surprise, began to sweat. “Ah. Well, you see, sir…”

Okay, something was definitely wrong. No Goblin had _ever,_ to Harry’s knowledge, called a wizard _sir._

The Goblin mistook Harry’s expression of worry for one of annoyance, and rushed to finish his explanation. “I’m afraid that I’ve been ordered to report back anything and everything to my superiors. It’s not often Gringotts finds practically no records to a wizard’s name, even counting the one of your defeat of the werewolf. However, I believe that were I to make known the importance and sensitivity of the matter, if not its exact nature, I could avoid disclosing my knowledge to anyone but the Ragnok himself, sir.”

The Ragnok. The Goblins’ equivalent of Chairman of the Bank. And since there was only one title he could think of on that page that would require _that_ level of security…

“This is not Gringotts’ first dealing with a Dredgen, is it?”

The Goblin began to quake in fear. “No sir, it is not, sir.”

“When did the last one come through?”

“Around three thousand years ago, sir.”

Three thousand years…Harry did a few mental calculations.

“…From Atlantis?”

The Goblin squeaked and nodded his head vigorously.

“Hmm. Interesting. Very well.” Harry gave a grin that would do an Ahamkara proud with the number of teeth it contained. “You may report to the Ragnok. But if I find out that you have ever revealed my secrets, willingly or unwillingly, I will send you to the Sea of Screams for an eternity. Do I make myself clear?”

The Goblin nodded once more. “Yes sir, perfectly sir.”

Harry raised his trigger finger, and pointed it directly at the Goblin’s chest. “Go.”

The Goblin practically fell out of his chair in his haste to escape. Once the slamming of the door indicated he was long gone, Harry gave a wave of his hand and Vanished all traces of his blood from the room. Once he was done, he turned back to his companions. “Now. I’d imagine you have questions. One at a time, please.”

Potter cleared his throat. “So. You _are_ a Potter. And, somehow, also a Black. Might the Potter-Black Alliance you mentioned earlier have been something in the way of a marriage?”

“No. Just…no. Definitely not. Good guess, though. Next.”

It was Black who chose the next question. “Dredgen. I’m familiar with neither the name, nor the title. Where, pray tell, do they come from?”

“From within. Only you can make yourself into a Dredgen; and most who try fail miserably. It’s in no way an inherited position. Over a thousand years, I can count the number of Dredgens in that time using less than two hands. And in that time, I’ve never heard of them having a _Lord._ ”

A Master, however,…well, there was a very good reason the name “Dredgen” basically meant “Endless”. And Harry knew for a fact two of the Endless were in at least some way subservient to him.

Potter melded his fingers together underneath his chin. “Gaunt. I was under the impression that all members of that House had either died or been sent to Azkaban.”

“All but two. Myself, and Tom Riddle. He still possesses the rights to their name and properties.”

Including a certain shack that Harry planned on paying a visit to in the very near future.

“But not you?”

“Well, the name at the very least, as you can see. Not so sure about the properties.”

And I have no intention of letting anyone else find out for certain, he added to himself.

Black held up a finger. “Thule. I have heard the name before, but I am unable to place it.”

“A Muggle legend, one derived from the Magical tale of Atlantis. The Muggle one is a fair bit cheerier than its predecessor, I’m afraid. It’s the name I chose after certain…revelations about my heritage.”

Potter and Black shared a glance. “…That’s more than enough for now. If anything else comes to mind, may we ask you at a later date for further elaborations?”

“Of course. We’re partners, aren’t we?”

Potter smiled. “Yes; yes I suppose we are.”

Harry rose. “If that’s all then, gentlemen, I believe we have an appointment to keep with a tailor, and I have a message to send to the Headmaster of Hogwarts.”

As he turned for the door that they had entered just a short while ago, Black’s voice halted him in his stride. “One more thing. The Iron Lords. Who were they?”

Harry’s neatly ordered train of thought derailed quite spectacularly as he was bombarded with images from events that had happened oh so long ago. And also had yet to occur. He took a deep breath that shuddered throughout his frame, and then let it out again.

“…I suppose you could say they were my friends. And some of them…some of them might as well have been family.”

Black and Potter both bowed their heads. “We’re sorry for your loss.”

Harry resumed his march forward. “Oh trust me, gentlemen. I’m not the one that lost.”

* * *

“Friends” was a very tame way of describing what Felwinter, Shaxx, Eli, and Harry had become to one another. “Family” wasn’t the right term either; Harry supposed the best way of explaining it was the relationship shared by two characters from the old Muggle TV show “Doctor Who” (well, new show now). Specifically, the one between the Doctor and the Master. Each other’s muses…and also each other’s archenemies. Shaxx and Felwinter simply couldn’t share a room without at least one thing being smashed dramatically, whether it be a wall or an entire building. Of course, each time they did so, they also managed to learn at least one new method of destruction from each other, so Harry counted that as a win.

Shaxx and Eli’s camaraderie was the rare sort shared between a Gryffindor and a Slytherin; one who had removed himself from the world by choice, and the other whom the world had chosen to remove on its own. And somedays not even Harry was sure which was which. They would often commiserate over the general sheep-like attitude that people seemed to exhibit…right before the Firewhiskey set in and they proceeded to demolish whatever their surroundings happened to be.

Eli and Felwinter, to put it bluntly, didn’t trust each other further than they could spit (even though Eli was a master of that particular art). Too many secrets neither cared to share; too many times burned by secrets others had kept from them. But when they inevitably _did_ end up sharing something, whether under the influence of Firewhiskey or something else, it was always something well worth learning.

Such as how to go from a Blink right into a Shoulder Charge mid-air.

They worked as a sub-unit of the Iron Lords; well, nominally at least. In reality, they were pretty much the equivalent of the Avengers (what had become Harry’s second favorite movie series, right after the Star Wars originals and prequels. They did not speak of the sequels). Place got attacked? Razed to the ground? Fallen? Cabal? Human bandits? Harry and his compadres were sent in to make an after-statement. Namely: you hurt us, we hurt you back. You kill us…we walk it off.

The first time Harry had literally “walked-it-off” had fried several circuits in Felwinter’s brain; they’d had to shoot him to get him to reboot successfully. After they’d done that (and Harry had ripped off the offending party’s left leg, beat him to death with it, and then shoved it where the sun didn’t shine), Harry had sat down with the others, and revealed one of his own secrets for the first time.

They had known he was a wizard; and they knew he could speak to snakes (it turned out Parseltongue gave you the ability to discern what an Ahamkara actually _meant,_ not just what they said). But what they _hadn’t_ known was exactly how famous of a wizard he was. And what had happened to grant him that fame.

In the end, he had been forced to summon the Vex Mind that he’d killed just to prove he was what he said he was: the Master of Death, whatever that meant. Felwinter’s eyes had lit up with questions; Shaxx’s with horror. But Eli’s reaction was the only one Harry had failed to read. He had merely shrugged, and turned back to looting the remains of the bandits.

For a while after that, Shaxx had avoided Harry. Even going so far as to return the phoenix-feather wand that he had been using to practice with (the hawthorn one had ended up in the hands of Eli). Felwinter for one was glad for the change of pace, now that _he_ had a wand to use, even if it wasn’t the best of focuses for him. Reducto, Diffindo, Confringo, Expulso…Harry had taught them all those and more.

It was only when Felwinter had begun searching for SIVA that Shaxx began verbally engaging with the both of them again. He made his opinion on the search known quite emphatically; saying it was a fool’s errand, a grand waste of time. The Golden Age was dead and buried; better to leave it lie. Felwinter had then asked if that meant they should leave Harry lie as well.

It didn’t end well.

Shaxx hadn’t accompanied them into the Plaguelands; Eli, however, had. And things had ended…badly. In the end, there were only four Iron Lords left standing: Saladin, Eli (aka Lord Wallach, after an old pre-Golden Age actor), Harry,…and Felwinter.

They had Apparated out, something Rasputin had so far never seen, and thus never learned to block. And immediately after they’d landed, Felwinter had collapsed, buried his head in his hands, and wept. It had all come out, then. Rasputin, SIVA, the Warminds…everything. Felwinter had led them into a trap. And he had been prepared to die with his chosen family, facing his actual one.

Harry had merely sat down beside him, and told him the story of one Sirius Orion Black…and how he came to die.

When he had finished, Eli took up the thread of conversation. He talked about the woman he had loved; the one who had ran away, looking for answers to questions that she shouldn’t have had to ask. And what had happened after.

Through it all, Saladin remained silent. But when it was over, he had stood, replaced his helmet, and stated that Shaxx had been partially right: the past should stay buried. But there would always be those that sought it out, for their own ends. They would have to prepare; train up a new generation of Risen, to fight those who came from the past to kill the future. He would head back to Felwinter Peak, and begin searching for worthy successors.

Felwinter’s reaction to Saladin’s announcement had been absolutely gob-smacking; he had straight-up _given_ Saladin Felwinter Peak in its entirety. When questioned as to why, he had merely said that he would pursue his own methods when searching for a successor. He intended to wander; perhaps starting with Venus or Mercury. Beyond that, he would not say.

Eli had scoffed; if there were anyone at all out there who deserved having people place faith in their leadership, they’d be here, on Earth, protecting humanity. _Not_ gallivanting off into the sunset, looking for enemy bastions to smash. He would wander as well, but certainly _not_ throughout the entire Solar System. If he found others who sought to use the Darkness against itself, he’d learn what he could from them, and pass it on when next they met. And if he found anyone against whom the forces of Darkness broke like a wall…well, he would send them to Saladin.

In the end, Harry had gone with Felwinter. Eli had offered to return the hawthorn wand; Harry had refused. Before they’d all gone their separate ways, Harry had given one last piece of advice to Saladin: go to Shaxx. Get him out of Durmstrang, by any means necessary. He wouldn’t do well on his own.

Saladin had nodded, mounted his Sparrow, and rode off into the distance. Eli had done much the same, but not before making the observation that Harry had gotten lucky on Venus once before; perhaps he would get lucky again.

As he vanished into the setting sun, Felwinter and Harry had both stood there, watching. They were still watching when the moon rose, and when it went down again. Finally, when the pale traces of dawn crept across the horizon, they both turned without a word, climbed aboard Harry’s ship, and flown away.

After all, what was there to say, really?

* * *

Harry was brought back to the present by the sudden cessation of Black’s yammering. Apparently, he had been asked a question.

He possessed just enough awareness to nod in agreement with whatever had just been suggested. Judging by how Black’s face had just gone from anxious to pleased, he guessed that he’d chosen the right course of action.

So why did he feel like he’d just agreed to be drawn and quartered?

“Excellent!” Black rubbed his hands together. “The Owl Post Office is just down the Alley; I’ll just send a quick note, and then we’ll be off to Madame Malkin’s!”

Harry frowned. “Actually, it’s just occurred to me that there’s a message I need to send as well. I still haven’t officially said ‘yes’ to Dumbledore.”

Potter made a sweeping gesture. “Well then by all means, Mister Potter. Proceed.”

And proceed they did.

* * *

Bellatrix practically exploded into the room. “Dromeda! They’ve found him! Daddy and Uncle Charlus found him!”

Andromeda sighed. There was really only one “him” Bella could possibly be talking about. “And were they able to make a good impression?”

Bellatrix bounced up and down in excitement. “Did they ever! They’re going lunch! In the Alley! _And we’re invited!”_

“…I beg your pardon?”

“Daddy asked Harry, that’s his real name by the way, Harry, ooo, I quite like it…”

“Bella. Focus.”

“Yes, well, Daddy asked Harry if we could come, so that he could introduce us formally, and he said yes! Daddy said they already have at least the beginnings of a partnership with him, and that he was open to further arrangements!”

Bellatrix was practically squealing in happiness by this point. “And you’ll never guess what else!”

“…I give up. What else?”

“He’s a _Lord._ Somehow, a half-blood has been appointed a Lord by Magic itself! Don’t you see, Dromeda? Its destiny!”

A little tingle shot down Andromeda’s spine at that. Destiny? She wasn’t so sure about that. But if a half-blood was capable of becoming a Lord on his own merits, then perhaps…

Perhaps things wouldn’t be so grim for her and Ted after all.

* * *

Dumbledore barely looked up from his research as an owl delivered a rather plain-looking note to his in-tray. He would have dismissed it entirely, if he had not happened to glance at exactly the right angle to notice the only symbol adorning the envelope:

An emboldened, capital letter “Z”.

One swish of a letter opener later, and he found himself barely restraining a smile at the letter’s terse, but undoubtedly welcome, contents.

He chuckled to himself, popped a lemon drop in his mouth, and immediately pulled out the notification to the Board of Governors he’d written that very morning. It was nice to know his skills at reading people were not quite entirely rusty.

Now, to send a note back informing Mister “Harry Potter” (and wasn’t that an intriguing undercover identity) of the date and time of his appointment with the Governors.

After all, it wouldn’t do for him to be late, oh no, not at all..

* * *

The Ragnok looked down at the third-best Account Manager he had in his employ. If the information he had brought was truly worth the secrecy he had demanded, then perhaps that estimation would go up even further. If not…

If not, then the dragons would have a little extra something in their dinner that evening.

Not that they didn’t already get “something special” for meals on a regular basis. The Ragnok resisted the urge to sigh. Why, oh why was it so hard to find good help nowadays?

Where was he? Ay yes, the Account Manager trembling in fear before him.

“Speak.”

“Oh great and mighty Ragnok, may you live forever, this day I was most blessed and cursed to receive in my office a most…interesting individual for a blood-test.”

“I am aware. Continue.”

“Yes, oh great and mighty Ragnok. This individual was brought as a guest of both the Potter and Black families, an alliance that has not occurred for over a thousand years, as I’m sure the Ragnok is well aware.”

“I am.”

“These conditions by themselves were enough to convince us to do a full search on anything relating to the Potters’ and Blacks’…guest. And what we found was…nothing.”

The Ragnok frowned. “Nothing, Account Manager?”

The Goblin gulped. Bad things tended to happen whenever the Ragnok frowned. And when he used your title without your name attached…

You more than likely had a dinner appointment with a rather large reptile in your imminent future.

His voice quavered as he answered the Ragnok’s question. “Yes, oh great and mighty Ragnok. Nothing. There were no records of him in our bank, beyond the scrap of information that he was able to slay a rather prominent Alpha Werewolf last night, with no harm done either to himself or to those he was protecting.”

“Interesting. Proceed.”

“Yes, oh great and mighty Ragnok. Once this lack of records was discovered, I was the one assigned to observe and interact with the client, to see what else could be gleaned from him. He was instantly aware of my purpose, and even noticed the standard mis-direction used to activate the blood tray.”

“And how, pray tell, is that significant?”

“I made sure to move faster than the human eye could see, oh great and mighty Ragnok. And yet, he was still able to witness it.”

“Are you sure?”

The Goblin swallowed once more. “Yes, oh mighty Ragnok.”

“You have left an epithet out of my title, Account Manager. Do not do it again.”

“I hear and obey, oh great and mighty Ragnok, may you live forever.”

The Ragnok grinned. “Much better. Now, you were saying?”

“Once the blood test was administered, the…individual examined the results with what seemed to be bored indifference. As if he already knew precisely what would appear.”

“And what _did_ appear, Account Manager?”

“The name of Harry James Potter, oh great and mighty Ragnok. Member of House Potter, Member of House Black, Member of House Gaunt, Member of House Peverell, Lord Zarathos of the Iron Lords.”

“The Iron Lords. Is there such an organization known to us?”

“There is not, oh great and mighty Ragnok.”

“Strange. And yet the blood test does not lie.”

Goblin magic never did.

“No, oh great and mighty Ragnok. And this was further confirmed when the…client…reacted to the final result that appeared on the parchment.”

“His title as a Lord?”

“No, oh great and mighty Ragnok. One further item appeared well after the blood test appeared to have been concluded.”

“And what was this…item, Account Manager?”

“A third name, oh great and mighty Ragnok. And a title to go with it.”

“A third name?”

“Yes, oh great and mighty Ragnok. A third. It was the name of…Dredgen.”

The candles that lit the room seemed to flicker in an unfelt wind. If it was indeed possible for a Goblin to faint, none had a better chance of it than the Ragnok did in that very moment.

“…A Dredgen? Here?”

“Yes, oh great and mighty Ragnok. And not just a Dredgen; the Lord of the House. Indeed, of all the other Endless. Even…the First.”

If this Potter, or Zarathos, or _Dredgen,_ had indeed managed to become Lord of the First…then things had the potential to go very, very badly for the Goblins as a whole.

“…You have only given half of his third name, Account Manager. What, pray tell, was the other?”

“…Thule, oh great and mighty Ragnok. Dredgen Thule.”

Thule. Atlantis. Peverells. Dredgens…

“Account Manager. You have somehow managed to avoid angering the only person in the world I consider capable of sinking England in its entirety, should he so wish it. If he had not been handled properly, I have no doubt he could have wiped Gringotts off the face of the earth. Congratulations, Senior Account Manager; you’ve just been promoted. Your new duties include…doing whatever is necessary to avoid drawing the Dredgen’s wrath down upon us. You are to send a notice to him, informing him of his new position as ‘Friend of the Goblin Nation’. And…send word to our friend the Count. He will want to know of this…development.”

“…Oh great and mighty Ragnok, may you live forever, I am almost hesitant to mention it, but…”

“Speak freely, Senior Account Manager.”

“…When I spoke with the Dredgen, I promised him that I would reveal his secrets to none other than you, oh great and mighty Ragnok.”

“Ah, but you see Senior Account Manager, you made that promise for yourself. Whereas I… _I_ have made no such promise. Send word. I will inform Alucard of the Dredgen’s appearance… _personally._ ”

The Senior Account Manager decided then and there that if this was the sort of thing being promoted meant, he most certainly did not want the job, thank you very much.

Of course, he never actually voiced his concerns aloud. To do so more than once in the same conversation with the Ragnok was to take one’s life into their own hands. And he had always been a slippery sort of fellow.

Especially when it came to his hands.


	10. It Is The Privliege Of Lesser Men To Light The Flame

I own nothing. Least of all this.

10) IT IS THE PRIVILEGE OF LESSER MEN TO LIGHT THE FLAME

Barely had the somewhat timid sales-girl scurried back around the corner before Harry leveled a glare at both of his cohorts. “Remind me again why we’ve ended up in Twilfitts and Tattings, of all places? I’m more than fairly certain that any single one of the hats in that window would put quite a severe dent in my finances; would Madame Malkin’s have really been that bad of an option?”

Black gave an almighty sigh. “Oh, you have no idea. Charlus, do you want to field this one, or shall I?”

Potter chuckled. “The pleasure would be all mine, Cygnus. First things first: if we had indeed decided to set our course for Madame Malkin’s fine establishment, two things would have happened. One, Cygnus would’ve probably died of embarrassment, and two, we would’ve had to deal with something that none of us would care much for at the moment. Namely, publicity. It’s the month before term starts at Hogwarts, my dear fellow, which means there could be conceivably _any_ number of people currently being attended to by the lovely seamstress and her assistants. I’d imagine the majority of that number would be more than intrigued by anyone who managed to secure the attentions of both a Black and a Potter. And just to top it all off, I can attest from personal experience that Madame Malkin is by far the worst gossip in Diagon Alley. Messrs. Twilfitt and Tatting’s talents may cater to the more….well-to-do of Wizarding society, but at the very least, their discretion is assured.”

“Oh? And why’s that, then?”

“Well, to put it bluntly, they owe my other brother-in-law quite a large sum of money on this property, and I’d imagine they’d do quite a lot to avoid getting on the bad side of the family.”

Other brother-in-law… “Abraxas Malfoy?”

Potter nodded. “One and the same. Rather shrewd businessman, even for a foreigner.”

Black flicked an imaginary piece of lint off his robes. “I reiterate; high praise indeed, coming from a Potter.”

“Hush you. As I was saying: the second reason to have your robes made here ties back, once again, to the Malfoys. They have an heir, yes, but they also happen to have an elder daughter. One in her final year at Hogwarts, and without a betrothal in place. If you were to, ‘play nice’, so to speak, you might just be able to secure the Malfoys’ not insignificant backing for yourself, instead of…Riddle.”

Harry frowned. “I thought you said that the Malfoys were foreign?”

“That they are.”

“Just how did they acquire seats on the Wizengamot, then?”

“Oh no my dear fellow, you misunderstand me. Abraxas knew the odds of _that_ ever happening were slim to none when he came here; so, he concentrated primarily on sinking his claws into the Ministry’s underbelly.”

Black cuffed Potter on the back of his head. “Manners, Charlus.”

Potter rubbed where Black had slapped him with no small amount of exaggeration. “My apologies. I should have said that he, ‘chose to pursue avenues of influence into the other branches of government’; there, better?”

“Barely.”

By that point Harry had already tuned the pair of them out; his train of thought was running down several tracks at once. The Ministry…Moody’s buried files…Riddle…’Play nice’…

His attention snapped back to the conversation at hand. “Play nice, you said?”

Potter nodded vigorously. “It’d be wise. The Malfoys are hardly my favorite side of the family, but the payout would definitely be worth it.”

“Hmm. Their daughter…I don’t suppose you happen to remember her name, do you?”

“But of course! Selene. Her name is Selene.”

Harry froze. Selene…hadn’t that been what Luna had said her mother’s name was? If she had ended up marrying a Lovegood…well, that begged the question of if her death had been more than just ‘accidental’.

If Lucius Malfoy hadn’t been high on Harry’s hit list, he certainly was now.

“Selene…more than somewhat endearing name. Rather sounds like she’s the sort of person it’d be quite enjoyable to be ‘nice’ to.”

Potter merely waggled his ears suggestively. “Doesn’t it just?”

Harry just barely caught the look of annoyance that flashed across Black’s face before it vanished once more behind his usual facade of mild boredom. Irritation at Potter’s cavalier attitude, or perhaps something more?

The odds of it being the second sky-rocketed with Black’s next remarks.

“Yes, quite a nice girl from what I know. As it so happens, both my wife and youngest daughter happen to be visiting both her and the Lady Malfoy at this very moment; a shame they won’t be able to join us for lunch later. Ah well. I suppose I shall just have to be content with outnumbering the Potters at the table by a margin of one.”

Now wait just a durned minute. Who said anything about lunch? And just what did he mean, “Margin of one?”

A crocodilian grin slid across Black’s face. “Why yes; for the Potters, we have you and Charlus, and for Blacks, we’ll have myself, and my two eldest, Andromeda and Bellatrix, the latter of whom I must confess, has been quite eagerly looking forward to seeing you again. I must say, her reaction when I informed her of your delight to dine with us was one for the history books.”

I’ll just bet it was, Harry thought to himself. See Harry, this is why you really shouldn’t go around just nodding ‘yes’ to people describing the Traveler knows what to you just to get them to shut up. Amy Pond did it, and ended up married to Henry the Eighth. You did it, and ended up facing an army of Fallen with only seven other Guardians at your back (Felwinter still hadn’t quite forgiven him for dragging him into Twilight Gap, and neither had yet to begin even remotely forgiving Saladin for what he’d done that day).

Next time just suck it up that you’ll look stupid and ask them to repeat the damned question.

“Really? That’s…marvelous. I’m certainly glad to know I made such a lasting…impression.”

Potter was obviously doing his level best not to laugh at Harry’s discomfort. Traitor. One day, he would have his revenge on the man for abandoning him in his hour of need. Harry swore it.

Black, meanwhile, had forged full steam ahead, oblivious to both of his companions’ reactions. “A lasting impression? Yes, I suppose you could say that was what you left behind…both on her, and on the pavement. Needless to say, I’d imagine she’s done nothing for the past half-hour but suffer through a nervous breakdown over exactly what to wear. And speaking of what to wear…perhaps I ought to see just what has kept that lovely young girl busy for so long. It seems a bit odd to be gone for so long…and we absolutely cannot allow you to be seen in public without robes befitting your…station.”

As if summoned by Black’s musings, the girl from earlier abruptly reappeared and conveyed that Mister Tatting was now quite ready to receive his new client. As Harry passed her by, he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps she had chosen the moment of Black’s remarks to make her presence known once more, all the while keeping out of sight for the conversation that had come before. After all, the Malfoys did own the place, and he was quite sure Messrs. Twilfitt and Tatting would be more than a little willing to pass on any information they happened to overhear in order to stay in their landlord’s good graces. His suspicions were slightly reinforced when Black paused just at the entrance to Mr. Tatting’s office and seemed to make a point of calling out to those behind him:

“Oh, and one final reason, Mister Potter. If you truly wish to make a good impression on certain members of the Board of Governors, then the finery I am about to have charged to my own finances on your account must indeed be the very finest available. And trust me, Mister Potter, Twilfitt and Tatting are nothing less than the finest.”

With that, he vanished through the doorway, leaving Harry to follow in his wake. And also to wonder just how much of that entire exchange, from the minute they stepped into the shop until then, had been meant for _his_ benefit…and how much for Abraxas Malfoy’s?

* * *

In all his many years of planning and plotting, Voldemort had never once considered that maybe, just maybe, there would be someone other than Albus Dumbledore who would stand in his way.

And why should he have?

There was none to match the old man in the political arena; he was far too paranoid to ever share power. And when it came to swaying the impressionable youth, well, who was in a better position to do so than the Headmaster of Hogwarts himself? As for the Ministry…if his carefully-laid plans and honeyed words did their jobs, Malfoy the younger would gladly hand over every single scrap of influence his father had managed to accumulate in his lifetime. After both of the elder Malfoys were dealt with, of course. Battle lines were being drawn, and there was no way he would ever trust any of his servants with anything even remotely important if they were connected, however tangentially, to a family like the Potters.

From there, he would move on to the Potters themselves. Lucius Potter would be first, naturally. It would have to be done quietly; perhaps with poison and the ever excellent excuse of “Dragon Pox”. From there, he would move on to the other branches. Charlus was a rarity in the Wizarding World; an effective leader of men, with survival instincts honed in the way that only war could provide. He would have to be silenced before he ever began to speak. And as for his wife, the Blacks would welcome him with open arms were he to deal with their so-called “blood traitor”. Their son would have been spared, at least for a while. Either the Blacks or the Malfoys would have inevitably taken him in, and it was always a good idea to have a backup plan should something unfortunate happen to the younger Malfoy while in his service. A seat on the Wizengamot, influence in the Ministry, _and_ a hereditary position on the Hogwarts Board of Governors? A worthy enough goal to justify the virtual extinction of an entire Pureblood House.

And now, all of that planning, all of that preparation, may very well have all been for naught.

He had been informed that a certain wizard with jet-black hair and burning green eyes had been observed entering Gringotts. Furthermore, he had been accompanied by two _very_ distinguished individuals indeed: Charlus Potter himself, and infinitely more troubling…one Cygnus Arcturus Black. The man who had, up until that very moment, been Voldemort’s best link to the rest of the Black family. He had been willing to practically _give_ his daughters’ futures away just to secure a place in the new world he saw rising.

But now, his last connection to the Ancient and Noble House of Black had officially been terminated. There was no doubt in his mind that somehow, some way, the Blacks had outwitted him. Perhaps _they_ had been the ones responsible for his forces’ utter annihilation at the hands of Zarathos; after all, had it not been a Black daughter whom Zarathos had left alive just to deliver a message to him? At first he had thought her a victim in their game, a pawn for Zarathos to sacrifice in order to cut his ties with the most powerful of Pureblood Houses, but if that had been true, why in Merlin’s name was Cygnus Black, the girl’s _father,_ so willing to associate with a man who had so callously attempted to have his offspring killed and/or tortured?

Perhaps the Blacks had been responsible for Yaxley’s treachery; whispering words where they thought he could not hear. Cygnus and the rest could have merely been ingratiating themselves, biding their time to see if he truly could deliver what he promised…and then striking when they believed him unable. At the very least, they were now, without a doubt, guilty of abandoning the cause. Of abandoning _him_ ; and of throwing their support behind a rabid dog that knew only two things: how to bark, and how to bite. Perhaps they believed they could control said dog; take his name and use it for their own purposes, to their own ends.

Control. Yes, that’s what it was. Control…and survival. The House of Black had not managed to earn the title of “Ancient and Noble” by resting on their laurels, after all. They had contrived the revelation of Zarathos existence, with one of their own on hand as a witness. And to think they had done it in such a way he had never once stopped to look deeper into Zarathos’ reasons for leaving said witness as the only survivor…he would have been impressed by their boldness, were he not enraged by their duplicity.

Boldness…doubtless the contribution of the Potters. It simply wasn’t the Blacks’ style; theirs was more “flatter you to your face while stabbing you in the back” than it was “offer grave insult to your face to distract you from the even graver one occurring under your very nose”. The more he dwelt on the subject, the more he began to wonder if indeed it had been the _Potters_ who had introduced Zarathos to the Blacks; hadn’t he just been ruminating on the blood-traitor that Charlus had married? Truly a fortuitous circumstance, that. He had only the one image of Zarathos’ face to study; and that blurred by the teary eyes through which it was viewed. But now, casting his mind back, he began to wonder if perhaps there had been some small family resemblance in that face…a resemblance to the _Potters…_

Lucius Potter had just replaced Abraxas Malfoy on the top of his “to-get-rid-of” list.

That is, right after Zarathos himself. Speaking of which…

A wave of his hand, and the door to his audience chamber swung open. He had summoned just the man for the job earlier, and then left him sweating in trepidation whilst he considered other matters. Not that the being he’d summoned actually _could_ sweat, but it was the thought that counted.

Heh, “count”-ed…

He cleared his throat. “Enter!”

A shadowy form seemed to glide into the room, all light around it seemingly absorbed into its cloak. Dementors may have been the only permanent solution, but Voldemort was hesitant to resort to one of those before learning more about Zarathos himself. After all, it was so devilishly hard to interrogate somebody after they were dead. So, he had resorted to the next best thing. One that could, hopefully, provide him with a more full history of Zarathos from the man’s very own point of view…

A vampire.

“Greetings, Count Sanguini.”

A dry, raspy voice seemed to echo from within the shadowed cloak. “Not Count yet, Lord Voldemort.”

He inclined his head. “My apologies then, friend. And how goes your campaign against your own old fool?”

The raspy voice spat in hatred. “ _Alucard_ remains as large a threat as ever; and we cannot move against Helsing without the support of the Ministry. Support _you_ promised, Lord Voldemort.”

“So I did; and such you shall have. I have already begun moving to that end; there are but three men left standing in our way. Dumbledore will not stand against us; not on this. He has as much reason to distrust the Helsing Organization as any. Remove these three men, and you shall have your position as Count; the Eldest of all vampires.”

“…And what, pray tell, are the names of these men?”

“The first, I am afraid, is Lucius Potter. Him I shall deal with personally, and soon. The second, and the one who’s death will provide us the influence we seek, is Abraxas Malfoy.”

“Malfoy is no friend of the vampires; his legislation would see us hunted like dogs. It will be a pleasure to drain his blood.”

“Yes, I’m sure it will. But not yet. First, we must deal with the third.”

“And _his_ name?”

“His true identity remains unknown, but the name he has assumed for now is…Zarathos.”

“…The slayer of Fenrir Greyback? Why should we wish to kill the man who has slain the strongest of our enemy since time immemorial?”

“Because I very much doubt he will stop with werewolves, my dear Sanguini. I can attest to the fact that Fenrir had come to believe much the same as you; that it is the wizards, the _humans,_ that are the real monsters. It was no coincidence that Zarathos targeted him before any other; it was his philosophy that marked him for death, not his strength. And so…Zarathos must die.”

A sigh. “Regrettable. What are his weaknesses?”

“From what we have seen…rage. Once angered, his control slips from his grasp entirely. This is usually accompanied by an unimaginable cruelty; a sheer inventive hatred. He has, somehow, managed to protect himself against the Killing Curse; his soul is irremovable. Therefore, it is against his blood that you must concentrate your attack. He has demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for fire; but your own dragon-hide cloaks should withstand the worst of his strength. As for the right time to strike? Let us just say…that I shall inform you when the opportune moment arrives.”

Sanguini bowed, and turned to leave.

“Oh, and one more thing.”

The vampire paused.

“Should you fail in this attack, and escape with your life, any memories you can pull from his blood will be greatly rewarded. Should you fail, and return with nothing…then your reward will be of an entirely different nature. Have I made myself clear?”

“…Inescapably.”

* * *

It had been many years since Alucard ever had reason to deal with Goblins. Many, many years indeed. Just over three thousand, in fact.

But if there was one thing a vampire was good at, it was remembering. And he remembered all too well the debt he owed the Goblins as a whole. If one meeting with the current Ragnok was enough to pay off said debt…well, he wasn’t complaining.

Gringotts’ security systems were virtually useless against someone of his power and experience; he could’ve appeared in the middle of the Ragnok’s office, or in their deepest, darkest vault, for all the good they would have done. But that would have been impolite. So, he settled for simply terrifying the unfortunate Goblin stuck as the Ragnok’s patsy secretary.

“Tell me again, meatbag, exactly why you felt it was necessary to summon me here?”

The Goblin choked in his grip, suspended about four feet in the air, his legs jerking in a pitiful attempt to escape.

“What was that? I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch it.”

“Can’t…tell…you…only…Ragnok!” the Goblin finally managed to wheeze out.

Alucard’s grip tightened ever so slightly. “Listen meatbag, unless you wish a most painful death on yourself, you will tell me _precisely_ what is going on, and you will do so without sparing a single detail. Savvy?”

“You…kill…me. _He…_ kills…us…all. I’ll…take…my…chances.”

“Who ‘He’? The Ragnok?”

A trail of blood dripped out of the Goblin’s mouth. “Not…him. The… _Other…”_

Ah. So it wasn’t so much of a ‘something’ as it was a some- _one._ Good to know.

The Goblin hit the ground with nary a whimper; it had cost all of his air just to save his own skin. He clearly understood the value of information; and that there was truly only one way for two people to share a secret. So he remained alive…for now.

The doors to the Ragnok’s office burst open, a howling wind echoing throughout the room. So he had a flair for the dramatic; so what? _You_ try living for several thousand years without resorting to theatricality for your own entertainment.

And when said theatricality merely added to the terror felt by any who knew exactly what he was? It was truly the best feeling in the world.

To the Ragnok’s credit, he showed absolutely no trace of the fear that Alucard could at this very minute smell racing through his veins. Hmm; perhaps the Ragnok’s terror was derived from this “Other” that the meatbag had mentioned. It certainly explained his utterly calm and detached demeanor.

“Count.”

“Ragnok.”

They stood for a moment, sizing each other up. As far as Ragnoks went, this one wasn’t particularly noteworthy. Then again, he only had the one other Ragnok to measure him against, so perhaps the assessment was a little unfair. Tough. He was sticking to it.

In the end, it was the Goblin that cracked first. “I imagine you’re quite anxious to discover exactly why I have summoned you to fulfill your oath.”

He flicked an imaginary piece of lint off of his shoulder. “Not particularly. It’s not as if I’m pressed for time, after all. If anything, I’d imagine its you that’s in a bit of a hurry.”

“…How much do you know?”

“That there’s a new player in town. One that has, somehow, managed to terrify not only your underling, but yourself, far more than even I’m capable of. I rather feel like I ought to be offended; if you’re not the scariest thing in the room at any given time, then what’s the point of it all?”

A hint of confusion had crept into the Ragnok’s voice. “…I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”

“No. You wouldn’t. So,” he drawled, “Tell me. Who is this… _Other…_ that the Goblin nation has deemed enough of a threat to warrant setting _me_ against him?”

Something completely unexpected happened then. The Ragnok began to _laugh._

Alucard barely resisted the urge to tear his ears off at the hideous sound; really, there were very few things worse in the universe than the sound of a Goblin laughing. As far as torture methods went, it was right up there with Vogon poetry.

“Count…Count, Count, Count, _Count…_ we don’t want to set you _against_ him; oh goodness, no.”

The Ragnok chuckled once more. “We want you to _befriend_ him. On behalf of the entire Goblin nation.”

“…I beg your pardon?”

“The _Other,_ as you call him…the greatest threat to Gringotts since our last dealings with you…is none other than… _a Dredgen.”_

…Bollocks.

Double bollocks.

A Dredgen had come once again.

The world must be ending.

He could see the newspaper headlines now, all “APOCALYPSES” and “SECOND COMINGS”. A second coming. He supposed that’s what it was, in a way. Funny; he’d always thought that he’d get a little more warning than word from the Ragnok, of all people. Clearly, Helsing’s surveillance net had a rather large hole in it.

“When?”

“Last night is the earliest we know for sure. He killed Fenrir Greyback.”

“…Good for him. Why?”

“Unknown.”

“Where?”

“This morning, here. Right now, in Diagon Alley. Later? Unknown.”

“Who?”

“Birth name of Harry James Potter. A name that had, until his visit here, never appeared in any of our records.”

Naturally.

“The current alias he is operating under is Lord Zarathos, of a group christened the Iron Lords. Yet more names unknown to us. As to his Dredgen title…he has taken the name of Thule. I’m sure I don’t have to point out what _that_ in all likelihood means. Furthermore, Magic had declared him the Head of all Dredgens…even the First.”

“…I thought the Peverells extinct.”

“So did we. Apparently, we were sorely mistook.”

“The Hallows?”

“All except the wand remain lost, and that has not moved on from its current wielder. Its as we suspected; the Master is no longer bound by the rules of Time. The ultimate Dredgen.”

Alucard was not what you would call a drinking man. Why should he have been, when it was impossible for him to become even slightly intoxicated? But at that very moment, he would’ve liked nothing better than to become roaring drunk.

“How in Merlin’s name did you convince him to share this much information?”

“Well…about that…”

“…Please tell me you haven’t been as stupid as I think you have.”

“In all fairness, the Dredgen merely forbade the Account Manager from revealing any of his secrets to anyone other than me. He has only himself to blame for not making similar stipulations on my part.”

“And I suppose that attitude is why you’ve elected to have _me_ be your representative to him? Anticipating a rather violent reaction, are we?”

The Ragnok was silent.

“…As I thought. Very well; I’ll not forswear my oath. Not after all this time. I’ll do my best to convince the Dredgen that you have no quarrel with him, nor he with you. But know this, oh Ragnok: you are, despite all wishes to the contrary, _not_ going to live forever. I have seen countless of your kind come and go throughout the centuries; and from my point of view, it won’t be long at all before you follow in their footsteps. If you wish for it to be a peaceful passing, and for that which comes after Death to be equally as serene, you would do well to agree with anything and everything that the Dredgen says. Even if it is an accusation of your own wrongdoing. Do you understand?”

“I….”

“I said, do you understand.”

“….Yes.”

“Good. Now, I’m afraid that for the first time in a very long while, I find myself in a bit of a hurry. So, for the sake of your sanity, lets just pretend I’m not about to slip through each and every enchantment in this bank to get what I need to placate our hopefully soon-to-be friend.”

The Ragnok made to speak, but then thought better of it and contented himself with nodding.

“Excellent. Guten tag, Herr Ragnok.”

“Wait!”

“…Say please.”

The Ragnok swallowed. “…Please, then. I have to know. The records; the legends. You were there…just how much…”

“How much is true?”

“…Yes.”

“All of it. And more. The first I ever saw of a Dredgen, she was erasing wizards’ very existence from Time itself. And the last I ever saw of her was the moment I managed to haul myself out of the water onto this accursed shore.”

“And?”

“And when I asked her why she had done it; closed the Vault, released the Goblins and Elves, slaughtered all but two werewolves and vampires…her reply was one that even now chills me to my very bones.”

“What was it?”

“…‘To rend one’s enemies is to view them as objects; hollow of existence and meaning. They labeled me their enemy; I merely returned the courtesy. And everyone knows that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ We were nothing more than a means to an end to her; if we had been in any way a threat, she wouldn’t have hesitated to grant us the same fate as the Atlanteans themselves. For three thousand years I have prepared; made myself stronger, faster, smarter. I’ve played the long game in order to gain myself allies among the government, and among those who hunt beings like me. But now, now it is all to be put to the test. There’s an east wind coming, Ragnok. Its names are many, but its purpose the same. There will be no weathering it; are choices are either to ride, or to be swept away. I, for one, intend to be a rider. And I will not haul you out of the way should you choose otherwise. Auf wiedersehen, Ragnok.”

And with a swirl of his billowing cloak, he was gone.

He had a Dredgen to find…and debts to call in.


	11. You're Not Allowed In There

I own nothing. Least of all this.

* * *

_As the Mandalorian saying goes, “Not gone; merely marching far away”. Sorry about the delay between updates, but my brain just had too many ideas bouncing around in it for other things. That being said, we are now back to our regularly scheduled programming._

_Toodles!_

* * *

11) YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED IN THERE

Damn but if this weren’t the most mind-numbing minefield of a lunch he’d ever been forced into.

And that was counting the time that he, Eli, Shaxx, Zavala, and Eris had been dragged by Cayde down to his favorite ramen shop.

Harry slowly sipped his tea. “So; an intern at St. Mungo’s. I imagine that must give you quite a few...eye-opening experiences.”

Andromeda Black (soon to be Tonks, if he had anything to say about it), tilted her head in acknowledgement. “Sometimes. But considering I spent my last two years at Hogwarts apprenticing under Madame Pomfrey, at this point there aren’t many injuries that could surprise me.”

“Is the good Madame still threatening students with naming a bed after them permanently?”

Andromeda grinned. “As far as I know. Last I heard, she actually carried through on her threat to the Prewett twins after they resorted to using themselves as Bludgers in the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch match.”

The Prewett twins…ah, Gideon and Fabian. “At least tell me they won the game for their trouble.”

Andromeda shook her head. “Their play was a last ditch-effort. It allowed the Gryff seeker to nab the snitch, but Slytherin still won by twenty points.”

Cygnus Black puffed out his chest. “As expected. A true Slytherin never loses.”

Charlus snorted. “Come off it, Cygnus; Slytherins lose all the time. They just tend to only do it when it hurts their opponents more than it hurts them.”

Cygnus snorted. “Perhaps.”

After that, the awkward silence from before his remarks to Andromeda once more descended.

Blimey, if things kept going like this he might actually find out if it was possible to die of boredom.

He snuck a quick look around the room…and had his eyes most firmly captured by Bellatrix. She might have been the least talkative person at the table (and wasn’t that just ironic), but there was no mistaking that in this instance, her actions were speaking far louder than words ever could. She had barely looked away from him ever since they’d been seated, not even while cutting into the admittedly beautiful looking steak in front of her. It was all demure glances and half-lidded gazes with her, and the cut of her gown certainly opened up a world of possibilities.

A world of possibilities, but somehow he got the feeling there was only one Bellatrix was interested in.

Minefield indeed.

He elected to take another bite of his roast Nundu in favor of making a decision on the subject. Sure, she’d killed quite a few of his friends in the old timeline, but from his point of view, that was over a thousand years ago. And from hers, it had yet to happen. For most of his life, he’d scoffed at the idea that anyone could be redeemed for the “Greater Good”; that sort of thinking inevitably ended up doing more harm than good. If Luke had just accepted what Vader was (Dark), and taken him up on his offer to team up against the Emperor, then the galaxy wouldn’t have fallen into complete chaos before the arrival of the Yuhzan-Vong. The Republic with all of its corruption would never have been resurrected, the second Death Star would never have been destroyed, the Empire could have become more British than Roman…

Where was he? Ah yes, redemption. Ridiculous. But prevention? That was always worth investment. If he could deprive the Dork Lard of any potential recruits, especially one as powerful as Bellatrix…well, perhaps it was in his best interests to “play nice”, so to speak.

“And what of your interests, Miss Bellatrix? If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that you were approaching your final year at school. Would I be correct in assuming your passion is Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts?”

Bellatrix finally cast her gaze elsewhere; namely, downwards. “One of them, my Lord.”

“Oh? And the others?”

“I find myself quite interested in the legal procedures of our world, my Lord. How the Wizengamot and the Ministry manage to keep our world from advancing, all the while preaching a progressive policy.”

“Bella!” snapped Cygnus.

Harry waved his hand. “Quite alright, Mr. Black. I completely understand. I myself have seen enough of the world to understand that any system divided into two warring factions always disintegrates into a standstill.”

Hoh boy, had he seen enough. From the Vanguard beginning to fall apart practically the moment Cayde’s body hit the floor, to the utter failure that was the Sith’s Rule of Two. There was a very good reason that Amy and Rory had lasted the longest of any of the Doctor’s modern companions (minus Clara); three was always stronger than two.

“If there were to be, say, a third portion of government, completely removed from both the Ministry and the Wizengamot, it would certainly clear up a lot of power struggles, wouldn’t it?”

Slowly, both Charlus and Cygnus nodded.

“And that’s more or less what I’m hoping will occur. Eventually. But that’s an incredibly distant long-term goal, if not pure fantasy. So, for now, let’s just take things as they come. Such as this excellent lunch; and the even more excellent company.”

Bellatrix blushed at that, and Cygnus beamed with pride. Charlus merely raised a single eyebrow, no doubt drawing some conclusions of his own. But Andromeda…Andromeda looked thoughtful, almost as if weighing options in her mind.

Finally, after what seemed an intense internal monologue, she spoke. “Mr. Potter.”

“Harry, please. Things will get quite confusing if we keep addressing each other solely by our last names.”

She gave a small smile. “Harry, then. Father mentioned you were planning on becoming the DADA instructor for Hogwarts; does that mean you intend to invest in the upcoming generation to prepare for your…long-term goal?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Killing off up and coming Death Eaters was certainly his idea of a good investment.

“Have you considered branching out even further beyond? At the very least, you will want to retain a lawyer; preferably a firm. One with a reputation for drawing the brightest of the new blood.”

Ah, so that was her game… “And would you happen to know such a firm, Miss Andromeda?”

Cygnus gave her a sideways glance. “Yes, Andromeda; would you happen to know such a firm?”

She flushed, but held steady. “As a matter of fact, I do. Doof and Schmirtz; the law offices retained by the Longbottoms. They are quite efficient in their selection of new partners.”

Harry pretended to rub his chin in thought. “Doof and Schmirtz; would that be the firm that retained the Hogwarts Head Boy from two years ago?”

Andromeda perked up. “You know him?”

“Know of him. Very loyal man, doggedly so. And moderately intelligent, by all accounts. Not the most magically powerful, but clever enough not to need to be. Tonks, I believe the name was.”

Charlus’ eyebrows scrunched in concentration. “Tonks. Not a pureblood name; perhaps a halfblood?”

Harry shrugged. “Perhaps. All I know for certain was that he was one of Slughorn’s favorites during his time at school.”

Both Cygnus and Charlus relaxed at that. “Well, if Slughorn was willing to vouch for him, then that’s all that needs to be said on the matter. Old fellow always was an expert at sniffing out talent.”

Andromeda mouthed me a silent ‘thank you’ from across the table; unfortunately, Bellatrix caught it. Her eyes had just begun to light up in the gleam of calculation when Harry decided to derail her train of thought quite spectacularly.

“So, Miss Bellatrix.”

“Please, Harry. If you insist on using your first name, then I’m afraid I must do the same. Bella.”

He nodded. “Bella. Which of your DADA teachers have you most enjoyed, and why so? I’d imagine you’ve seen quite a number of teaching and fighting styles in your time at Hogwarts.”

As Bellatrix dove into the intricacies of magical combat, Harry relaxed and went back to his roast Nundu.

This really was an excellent lunch.

* * *

“My Lord, I bring news.”

“Speak, my servant.”

“Potter, Black, Zarathos, and two of the Black sisters met for lunch in Diagon Alley. One of the cooks at the establishment was in our employ. He ensured that Zarathos’ Nundu roast was deliberately underdone in the hopes of causing a scene.”

Underdone Nundu…poisonous when even slightly pink. “Continue.”

“My Lord…the target made his way through the entire meal without so much as batting an eyelash.”

“… _Inconceivable.”_

“And yet it happened, my Lord. We have several witnesses to the fact.”

Nundu venom was the second strongest poison in existence; with iocane powder only slightly behind. And Voldemort knew for a fact an iocane powder immunity would not have been enough to save Zarathos. That left only one possible explanation…some way, somehow, the wizard had managed to not only find Basilisk venom, but inject himself with just enough to create an anti-venom. And, judging by his lack of reaction to the underdone meal, built up that anti-venom until his body was capable of producing it on his own.

Why, in Merlin’s name, would someone who laughed in the face of Death go to such lengths to avoid ever being poisoned?

Unless…it wasn’t a defensive measure. It was an offensive one.

There were countless dangerous creatures and rituals in the world that required blood to continue; if one were to attempt to use Zarathos’ blood for such a thing, there was no doubt in his mind the results would be catastrophic.

Especially for vampires.

“Summon Sanguini; I have urgent business with him.”

The nameless servant began quaking in his boots. “Master, I’m afraid I am unable to fulfill your request.”

Voldemort’s eyes narrowed. “ _Explain._ ”

The servant was practically sobbing in fear by now. Bad enough he had to report the failure to his Lord, but this added on top. “My Lord…we…we also…received word from our spies in Gringotts. The…the target…undertook an inheritance test there…earlier today.”

_“And what was revealed?”_

“My…my Lord…Zarathos…is but one of his three names, master.”

Whatever designs Voldemort had for the worm in front of him went out of his mind instantly. “ _Three?_ Are you _certain?”_

Three names…Merlin, even having _two_ made it almost impossible to finetune a ritual specifically for a person’s destruction. To have magically acquired _three…_ the odds might as well have fallen below zero.

“Y…yes, my Lord. And…and of those, the only one we have learned was from the same cook I mentioned earlier, my Lord.’

“And what was it?”

“Harry. Harry Potter, my Lord.”

A Potter.

Distantly related to the Gaunts.

Why was he beginning to get the feeling he really, _really,_ wasn’t going to enjoy the rest of his minion’s story? “You still have not provided me with an explanation for your failure to summon our vampire friend.”

“My…my Lord…once the status of our adversary was made known to the Ragnok, he immediately ordered a message sent to the wizard. The contents of the message are not known, but our agents at Gringotts were able to delay its departure until after Zarathos had left the Alley. They placed a tracking charm on the owl, and once the message was registered as delivered, delivered to a place you have decreed all trespassers be killed immediately…”

Voldemort hissed. “ _You dispatched the entirety of our ally’s forces to deal with him.”_

The servant fell to the floor crying. “Forgive me for my failure, my Lord! We did not know you wished to speak with their leader! He shall return soon; I swear it!”

 _“Yesssss.”_ He drawled. “He will. But if what you have just told me is true, then he shall be returning in a wooden coffin, if not an urn. My servant?”

“…Yes, my Lord?”

“Crucio.”

* * *

So, this was the Gaunt shack.

Somehow, it managed to seem even more dreary than it had in Dumbledore’s Pensieve.

Now, he might not be the best at feeling magic, but even _he_ could notice how the closer you got to the place, the more the temperature dropped. Going off a hunch, he stopped just short of where his helmet told him was zero degrees Celsius.

Slowly, he formed a throwing knife in his hand, and then stabbed it forward.

Sure enough, the minute it hit the line, the thing shattered. Frozen solid, instantly. Not good. That meant a nice Blade Barrage was out. Nova Bomb, maybe. Zero point energy. But all that ate was magic, not souls. And if he was going to the trouble of blowing this whole place up, he wanted to try his best to kill as many stones with one bird as possible (heh, Stones). The less energy expended, the faster he could get the hell out of there, the better his chances of avoiding any ticked off Dark Lords.

Thundercrash was right out; no bloody way was he stupid enough to toss himself over the ward line. All Stasis attacks were automatically disqualified just on the grounds of them never being able to get through similar energy fields all on their own. Tether…Tether could work. If he shot the wards, and then waited for them to drain, he’d be free to retrieve the Stone and deal with the Horcrux in his own time. And the awesome thing about Tether was that it instantly (well, almost instantly) suppressed any and all attempts by the wards to contact anyone who might be monitoring.

Yes, that would do…

A flutter of wings overhead pulled him from his calculations.

An owl. A bloody Post Owl, that had just _had_ to follow him directly into the one area he was almost positive Voldemort was watching carefully. He could only pray the stupid bird didn’t hit the ward line.

He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding as the owl dropped a letter into his outstretched hand. The rather large, engraved “G” on the front gave him some idea as to the sender; looked like the little bugger had talked after all. Either that, or the Ragnok had. Either way, he’d be sure to deal with them later.

The owl never once looked back; the second its cargo was gone, so was it. Harry didn’t stop casting surreptitious glances around until the bird was well out of sight. It hadn’t flown across the line, thank the Traveler, but it had still been a near thing. If Voldemort had noticed anything suspicious…he shuddered to think.

And then he shuddered again as the sun suddenly seemed to go dark.

Damn. The Potter luck strikes again.

Every single person and/or goblin in the Gringotts’ mail system had just made his hit list.

Voldemort himself hadn’t come; hiding in the shadows wasn’t his style. Not in the middle of the day, anyway. He always preferred to make a dramatic entrance.

Whatever this was, it was certainly dramatic. But no entrance.

He swiveled from one direction to another almost instantly, all the while silently begging his radar to give him something to work with. The shadows continued to grow, forming almost impenetrable walls of fog on all sides, even above. Reminded him of Oryx’s Throne World.

There…two, no, three blips. A perfect triangle. Appropriate.

Now, it was his turn to be dramatic.

“You think darkness is your ally. But you have merely adopted the dark. I was born in it! Molded by it. I didn’t see the light until I was already a man…”

He ran his fingers over his holster. “…And by then, it was nothing but…”

He drew. “BLINDING!”

The Last Word cracked three times, Solar energy speeding the bullets on their way.

Three bodies failed to disintegrate.

And in the flashes of Light, Harry could just make out the shapes of what he was dealing with.

Only vampires would be so stupid as to wear such cliché robes in broad daylight (granted, it wasn’t daylight anymore, but it was the principle of the thing). Well, moderately stupid. Dragon-hide; must be. Only thing he could think of off the top of his head that would absorb a shot from a Golden Gun.

The Last Word would be useless here; he needed something bigger.

He holstered his gun. “Well, color me impressed. Someone actually did their research, for once. You do know I can do more than just fire, right?”

A voice that came from everywhere and nowhere answered him. _“Oh, we know. We just don’t anticipate you getting the chance to prove it.”_

Harry ducked and rolled on instinct. A blade whizzed through the air where seconds before his head had been.

So, that was how, they wanted to play, was it?

_“Impressive. Most impressive.”_

“Enough with the voice modulation, Darth. It’s not doing anything for you; there’s better ways to track than through sound.”

_“I quite agree. Body heat, for one.”_

Harry dodged the blade yet again, this time taking the opportunity to vanish into the smoke.

_“Vibration, for another.”_

A jump into a twist mid-air.

He landed hard, his fist slamming into the ground. A wave of Arc energy spread outwards from the impact, smaller than the normal amount of Havoc he caused, but he trying to conserve energy for the real fight.

It bought him enough time to switch what he had holstered…and to clench his other fist around a certain, glowing blue handle.

He Blinked forward…and buried his Arc Blade in the face of one of the vamps.

The creature disintegrated with a howl, the lightning from the strike illuminating the surrounding area. And also revealing that the rest of his opponents were all on ground level.

All seven of them.

Bollocks.

Time to bring out the big guns.

His left hand came up to point behind him…

BOOM!

And pulled the trigger on Eriana’s Vow just as the one behind him leapt to avenge his fallen comrade.

Cue the music.

“Welcome to the jungle.”

_“WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, WE GOT FUN AND GAMES! WE GOT EVERYTHING YOU WANT, HONEY WE KNOW THE NAME! WE ARE THE…!_

Oh, how he’d missed this. Sometimes, like after you’ve just spent an entire day in boring meetings and negotiations, it felt so good to cut loose.

* * *

He yanked his Arc Blade from the seventh corpse, just in time to watch it disintegrate to ash. That had gone rather well, all things considered.

A sudden tearing pain in his arm disputed that assertion.

Oh, right. There’d been eight of them.

He whirled to retaliate with a Cross Counter to the face…and was met with a sight he never cared to witness again. A vampire, shrieking in pain, as the lower half of its face dissolved.

Basilisk venom in the blood’ll do that to you.

He sighed, and buried another bullet from the Vow in the vamp’s head. Waste of ammunition, perhaps. But he really didn’t feel like having to clean _that_ off his armor.

_Whoosh._

Harry whirled, his hand cannon already pointed in the direction of the new threat…only to find another equally large gun being pointed right back at him.

Worse; it was a gun he recognized.

He sighted along the barrel, looking for the telltale hat and cloak, the unmistakable red glasses, and above all, the most terrifying smile in all existence…

“Well, well, well. Alucard. Fancy meeting you here.”

The First Vampire grinned (and oh Lord, wasn’t that horrifying). “As opposed to just a plain meeting?”

“Something like that. Are you lower yours first, or am I?”

“Let’s keep things like this for a while. It’s an excellent metaphor, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps. Don’t suppose you’d care to explain what you’re doing around such a lowly bunch of your kind?”

“This _lowly bunch,_ as you put it, was in fact under the sway of one of my greatest rivals. One know as Sanguini to the few mortals he chose to consort with.”

“…I know that name.”

“Yes, I thought you might.”

“Helsing not allowed to deal with him?”

“Unfortunately. He was under the protection of the Ministry of Magic; and the odds of them ever willingly giving an organization such as Helsing any ground whatsoever are slim to none. As I’m sure you’re well aware.”

“As you said, unfortunately. Mind pointing out which one was the offending party?”

“I believe he was the one who thought it would be a marvelous idea to try and take a bite out of a Dredgen.”

“Good. It’ll make the message even clearer when I send the body to Voldemort.”

Alucard chuckled. “Oh, I like you. But after I reveal certain things that I’m afraid I must, I’m more than a bit certain you won’t feel the same way about me.”

“…Do tell.”

“That message you just received. The one from Gringotts. The Ragnok had it sent himself. It basically declares you a Friend of the Goblins, as in, you can do whatever you bloody well please in their bank and there’s not a thing anyone can do about it.”

“And just why are you afraid to tell me that?”

“Because I also am a Friend of the Goblins. And I may or may not have arranged for my rivals to track that particular owl to your location in the hopes that you would take care of a few of my problems for me.”

“And if I had failed?”

“You wouldn’t. I would’ve stepped in if necessary. As Friends, we’re honor bound to help each other. And not even the Ministry is willing to cross the Goblins on that.”

“…So, basically, what you’re saying is that you set me up to do something I probably would’ve done eventually anyway, but in such a way that you were allowed to help if it became necessary?”

“More or less.”

Harry hmphed. “Ruthless. Good thing I would never have expected anything different from you. We’re cool.”

“You are certain?”

“Well, aside from the fact I’m definitely recruiting you to express my displeasure to Gringotts as a whole in how they’ve blown my cover, yes.”

“I would be most delighted to assist.”

“Good. First things first, though. You might want to put your gun away for this. Oh, and stand back. No idea what effect this might have if you stand too close.”

Slowly, Alucard nodded, and lowered his Casull. He then seemed to float backwards a couple of meters, well away from the ward line.

Harry stretched out his arms. If he no longer had a reason to be stealthy, then by Merlin, he was gonna take advantage of it.

Goodbye, Gaunt shack. Goodbye, piece of Tom Riddle’s soul.

May you both drown in the Sea of Screams.

_“FIENDFYRE!”_


	12. Me? I'm Allowed Everywhere

I own nothing. Least of all this.

* * *

_Important Note: The only exotic armor Harry prefers to wear is Crown of Tempests for the wow factor. Oh, and his own version of the Bones of Eao. Everything else is just: black duster, black boots, black gloves…you get the idea. One thousand years hasn’t made him any less emo. Or less appreciative of the Witch-King of Angmar’s fashion style._

12) ME? I’M ALLOWED EVERYWHERE

“So…how long’s it been for you? You know; since Atlantis?”

“…Approximately three thousand years. And for you?”

“Oh, I’d say it’s been…about five hundred since Ess told me what she did. I had just enough self-preservation to avoid asking if she didn’t think it was a bit overkill.”

“A most terrifying woman, indeed.”

“You shoulda seen her fighting Atheon. Legendary. Be glad she’s on humanity’s side.”

“Ah, so she’s still around then. I did wonder…”

“Yeah, kinda hard to kill a Dredgen. Or an Exo, for that matter. Last I heard, she was kicking around on Mercury, helping with the evacuation.”

“Evacuation? Of an entire _planet?_ ”

He waved it off. “Long story; and suffice to say its not the first time any of us have done it.”

“Us? Just how many are you?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether the Man with the Golden Gun’s around or not.”

“Your enemy?”

“Our best enemy. But not our worst friend. It’s complicated.”

“It always is, with you Dredgens.” Alucard’s head twisted suddenly to face down at the small rock Harry had retrieved from the rubble. “…Is that what I think it is?”

“Probably. Lemme just make sure real quick…”

He twisted the Stone three times…and the specter of the Vex Mind once more appeared. Funny; no matter what time Harry seemed to end up in, it remained the one spirit he could summon without fail. Probably something to do with how it was kind of outside Time when he killed it, but that was more Osiris’ or Ess’ area of expertise than his.

“Yep, it’s exactly what you think it is.”

If Harry didn’t know better, he’d say that Alucard was in shock. “…The last time I saw that, it was being separated from its brothers by a family determined to keep the world from repeating the mistakes of their homeland.”

Harry held out his hand. “And now I’m doing the same. Take it.”

“…What.”

“I’ve already got my timeline’s version; and I think I can trust you enough to actively avoid becoming the Master of Death. Helsing would be tempted to use the Wand, and the Cloak should probably stay where it is. At least this way, you might be able to say some of the goodbyes you’ve missed in the last few millennia.”

“…I never imagined I’d hear a Dredgen offer me a kindness.”

“Trust me, its not kindness. Goodbyes are always painful; and, well, let me just say there’s some things possibly coming down the line I’d rather not have to deal with.”

“…I understand. So…you mentioned something about slaughtering quite a large portion of the Goblin population?”

“I did. Should be more than enough blood for the both of us to get back to full strength. Only one thing I do want to make perfectly clear, though.”

“Yes?”

“The Ragnok is mine.”

Alucard grinned. “Naturally.”

“Excellent. Just have to make a quick detour to deal with some bones in a graveyard, and then we can be on our way.”

“…If that was a euphemism, I’m not sure I want to know what it was for.”

* * *

Andromeda just barely resisted the urge to strangle her sister. “Bella, I swear to Morgana, if you say one more word about how regal or powerful he looked, I can promise you I will make your life a living hell until you graduate.”

“But _Andyyyyy…”_ Bella pouted. “That outfit of his was just so _dashing.”_

“And tight.” Andromeda muttered under her breath. “You do know da suckered him into dressing up like that on purpose, don’t you?”

Bella waggled her finger. “Ah, but my Harry is more than clever enough to have known exactly what father was doing, and why he was doing it. That he went along willingly just proves he really is interested!”

“Oh?” Andy raised an eyebrow. “Tell me, Bella, where exactly, during that entire hour-long lunch, did he ever divulge a single detail about himself that wasn’t positively shrouded in secrecy?”

Bella opened her mouth…and shut it again.

“Every single topic of conversation he brought up related to _us,_ to you and me, in some way, shape, or form. Our passions, our hopes, our worldviews. If he really is as clever as you say, he must’ve been willing to do a lot in order to make up for any perceived slight he’d delivered to our family. And that includes treating you with the utmost respect to make up for the attempt he made on your life.”

“Harry would _never!”_

“Bella, you may know that, and I may know that, but our Head of House won’t. And neither will the Dark Lord. Harry is playing a game of thrones, now. And as powerful as he may be, his head is just as susceptible as any others to the chopping block of public opinion.”

“So…all that…him asking all those questions…he was just…pretending to care?” Bella’s voice wavered.

“Now did I say that? You ought to know better, Bella. I have no doubt he actually did care, at least about some of it. Your feelings on Hogwarts, politics, your former DADA professors, all of that was invaluable to someone in his position. But he could have just as easily gotten the answers to those questions from me. That he chose you to focus on quite clearly indicates he views _you_ as the potential future of the Wizarding World. A future he apparently wants very much to be involved in.”

Bella’s eyes lit up in hope. “You mean it?”

“Of course. You’re going to have to work to keep his interest, though. I’m sure quite a few families will be throwing their daughters at him eventually, and I have a sneaking suspicion Uncle Charlus has already started in on him about his niece.”

Bella’s face twisted into a snarl. “I’ll _kill_ her if she tries anything.”

“Darling, Blacks do not merely ‘kill’ people. We ‘disappear’ them. And besides, can you really see Selene of all people caring about the future of the Wizarding World?”

“Well…no.”

“No. She doesn’t have your drive, Bella. Your hunger to prove yourself.” In reality, all Selene Malfoy wanted was to get as far away from her family name as possible. Much like Andromeda herself; they’d watched the backs of each other’s boyfriends for long enough at school.

“Capitalize on her lack of ambition. Perhaps you should suggest a Dueling Club to Harry once you get to Hogwarts; it would certainly give you an excuse to show how you wish to become better at your passion.”

Bella’s gaze turned thoughtful. “Yes…a Dueling Club…and maybe a Debate Team to go with it…”

Andromeda knew that tone of voice all too well. Bella would sink into a never-ending flood of ideas for some hours to come, only emerging when she couldn’t possibly hold them all at once anymore. She would then work herself to exhaustion scribbling it all down, and fall asleep somewhere between additions to the Code Duellem for younger students and a detailed explanation as to exactly why Ministry-funded greenhouses were needed.

She gave one backwards glance at her sister as she left the room. If Harry ended up rejecting her…she wasn’t sure that either the Black or Potter families would be left standing in the aftermath.

She needed to speak to Harry; alone. To ask him straight out what his intentions were with her sister…and to find out just how much he knew about former Hogwarts’ Head Boy Theodore Tonks.

* * *

Unspeakable Augustus Rookwood was shaking in his boots.

He’d found it. He’d found it all.

The only possible explanation for just where the Hell this Zarathos had come from…and what he’d come here to do. And if his calculations were correct, the odds of anyone in the whole of Magical Britain surviving were somewhere south of zero.

Perhaps it was time to consider changing sides…

As if sensing his thoughts, the hidden Mark on his arm twinged in pain. No; there would be no changing sides. Not after he’d seen what had happened to Yaxley. He was in far too deep as it was; playing double-agent for any side would merely stick his neck out even further.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have an escape plan on the side.

Which was what he’d been in the process of planning when Head Unspeakable Croaker called him into his office.

Well, the nominal Head Unspeakable, anyway. Anyone who knew anything knew that the real Head Unspeakable didn’t officially exist. No name, no position, no documentation of any kind. Just how much power the shadow of “Unspeakable Zero” held, no one knew. And no one much cared to find out.

At this point, Rookwood could care less. All his concentration, all his focus, was now on two very important things: surviving Zarathos…and surviving his boss.

“Let me get this straight…I give you access to the deepest, darkest corners of our archives, places that not even _I_ am allowed to look into without being held accountable…and all you can tell me…is that the current bane of my existence, _is a Potter.”_

“Sir, you misunderstand me. I stated that he was a _Peverell.”_

“Oh come off it, Rookwood. You know as well as I do that the Peverell family died out centuries ago, absorbed by other Houses like the Gaunts. And of those Houses, the only one left standing after Grindelwald was the Potters. Ergo, QED, and thusly, that must be what he is. Something I _already bloody well found out from our sources in the Diagon Alley!”_

“Be that as it may, sir, I have undisputable proof that Magic itself has made a distinction between the two.”

He was playing a dangerous game here, but he really needed Croaker off his back. The Dark Lord would not be pleased he had been forced to reveal this much, but he hoped very much that what he’d left out would make up for it.

“Enlighten me.”

“During his second altercation, just at the end of the fight, if you look closely, you can see _this_ symbol be burned into the ground at the epicenter, and then be swallowed up by the new green growth.” No need to mention he’d first noticed said symbol in Zarathos’ eyes during a Pensieve viewing of his _first_ altercation; no need at all.

Croaker grabbed the file from Rookwood from across the desk, and began to read. As his eyes moved down the page, they began to grow wider and wider. By the end, he bore more than a passing resemblance to the amphibian that had granted him his nickname.

“…Bloody hell.”

“That was my opinion as well, sir.”

“Death magic. Real, actual, proper death magic. Not just cheap tricks and shoddy necromancy. Bloody, bloody hell.”

“You said that already, sir.”

“…Well, the good news is you just gave me an excellent excuse to bury the real reason I called you in here for an update.”

For some reason, Rookwood’s stomach decided it would be an excellent time to start heading south. “…Oh?”

“Our detectors went off again. Popular opinion was that it was Zarathos again, right up until we actually arrived on the scene. For one reason, the case didn’t match his usual M.O. at all. Casings for enchanted bullets left everywhere. And for another, I doubt he’d be stupid enough to commit political suicide by dispatching eight vampires and then incinerating the remains using a combination of lighting and Fiendfyre. The actual stuff this time, not his signature Light version. Only other explanation I could’ve given the Ministry would’ve been…”

Rookwood finished the sentence. “Helsing.”

“You got it. And I’m sure you can imagine how well that would’ve gone. The Daily Prophet would’ve had our heads, right after the Minister had our asses. Fortunately, since you’ve managed to draw connections between the Peverells, the vampire clans, the Gaunts, and Zarathos, we can make a pretty convincing case it actually was him…and then bury it with the rest of his files.”

“…Sir, you’ve mentioned the Gaunts twice now. May I inquire as to why?”

“Didn’t I mention? Place where it all went down; shack belonging to the Gaunt family. Near the village of Little Hangleton. Not so much as a stone left standing; and whatever magic was used to get there was eaten by the Fyre.”

He just bet it was. Oooo, his Lord was not going to be happy. He could only hope he took out his displeasure on others before he was forced to make his own report.

“…Will that be all then, sir?”

“For now. Keep digging, Rookwood. Now that we know where his spells came from, I wanna see whether or not we can use ‘em ourselves. Having a Light version of Fiendfyre would be damned useful; and if we can find a way to put down a Dementor permanently, even better.”

“Understood, sir.”

He’d get back to digging, alright. Right after he went out and drowned himself in Firewhiskey, and then dragged himself in front of the Dark Lord. Neat little tidbit: the Cruciatus hurts a lot less when you’re good and sauced.

* * *

Harry grinned as he shoved the Account Manager from his first visit up against the wall.

“REEEEE! Lemme go! Lemme go; it wasn’t me, I didn’t do it!”

Oh, but he loved this part of aggressive negotiations. “Now, you are going to tell me exactly what happened in that meeting, or I am going to remove a pair of somethings very near and dear to you, one right after the other. Slowly. With a cheese grater.”

“Cheese grater, huh? Never heard that one before.” Alucard drawled.

“Yeah, I have a standing bet with someone to see which of us can use it the most in a threat.” And that was one bet with Ikora he had no intention of losing. Not after what happened last time.

The Account Manager whimpered. “Please, oh great and mighty Dredgen, I beg your mercy! I tried to warn the Ragnok, I swear! I told him to reveal nothing, but he didn’t listen!”

“…I don’t believe you.”

“PLEASE! YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME!”

“…No, I really don’t.”

“You have already executed everyone else who could have conceivably inconvenienced you; why would I risk my own life by lying?!”

“I dunno, why would you?”

Alucard circled behind him. “Perhaps he is more afraid of the Ragnok than he is of you.”

“Hmm, maybe. What about it, Goblin? _Are_ you more afraid of him?”

“NEVER! NEVER, I SWEAR!”

“…Alright; I believe you.”

“…You do?”

“Sure. That’s why I’m gonna let you go.”

He dropped the Goblin to the floor. “I’m gonna give you to the count of three to get your lousy, lying, low-down, fore flushing carcass, out that door. One.”

The Goblin ran.

“Two.”

He pulled out his Tommy.

“BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! _HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!_ Three. Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.”

BANG!

“And a happy New Year!”

BANG!

“…Do you think you got him?”

“Nah, just wanted to scare him off. We’re gonna need someone to run this place when we’re done, aren’t we? Who better than a Senior Account Manager?”

“Golg.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“His name is Golg.”

“…Well I’m sorry about that, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do. Well, beyond giving people a reason to start calling him Ragnok instead.”

“…That’ll do it.”

“Yes, I thought so. Come on, then; time to express our displeasure with the head man himself. Unless you have a few more targets to cross of your own list?”

“I’m afraid we got them all. I must say, I’ve never seen a blade like yours before. I was under the assumption you were being metaphorical when you referred to using blood to get your strength back.”

“Well, not so much strength as energy. Strength is for melee, everybody know that.”

“What?”

“What?”

Alucard gave him a sideways look. “…Moving on…do you intend to use the same weapon on the Ragnok himself?”

“Nah; Dark-Drinker’s all well and good, but I got something a little more…esoteric…planned for him. Why do you ask?”

“Because there is a very popular belief that once the Ragnok dies, all of his knowledge and memories pass on to his successor. Including those from the Ragnoks that came before. It is further rumored that if one were to utterly destroy the spirit of the Ragnok, then Gringotts, and all the enchantments that hold it together, would fall.”

“…I’m getting heavy Odin-force, Avatar, All-Father, Ragnarök kinda vibes here, so let’s just assume that’s a fairly bad idea and leave the soul-eating sword out of things.”

“That would perhaps be for the best.”

* * *

Barely had the door swung closed behind his subordinate before Croaker was throwing up every single ward and charm he could think of, and a few more he made up on the spot. he usually counted himself lucky to receive a message from his boss once every five years; to receive two, in the space of three days’ time? He could explicitly state that such an occurrence was extremely _un-_ lucky.

He swallowed as the runes in front of him began to glow. As a general rule, he tended to agree with the Muggleborn that came into their world. Having the majority of the power and the gold in the hands of a few select families was an extraordinarily bad idea in most circumstances; amongst wizards, it was an even worse one. But the fact could not be denied that sometimes, there were just certain Houses that were better at certain things than anyone else could ever hope to be. The Bones had their necromancy, the Lestranges had their ties to the Underdark, the Longbottoms were top herbologists. And for dealing with the paranormal, the supernatural, and the downright unexplainable, there was no one better than…

“You orders have been carried out, Sir. Helsing has been cleared of all suspicion. Your operative’s presence has been completely overlooked in the records.”

…the family that ran the deadliest organization in the entire world.

Unspeakable Zero, the man known to the outside world as Sir Arthur Helsing, smiled down at him. “Excellent. You have my congratulations, Croaker. I’d tell you to pass them on to the rest of your Department, but, well…”

“I understand, Sir.”

“By the way, Croaker…were you aware that the perfect time for a certain ritual passed by just last week…and less than a few hours later, your current scapegoat made his grand appearance?”

“…I was not, Sir. What ritual might that have been?”

“I suggest you ask the subordinate that just left your office. When he’s sober, that is. I imagine he’s going to have to drink a lot to forget what he found today.”

“…I’d imagine you’d be right, Sir.”

“Good day, Croaker.”

“Good day, Sir.”


	13. Nine Hundred Years Of Time And Space

I own nothing. Least of all this.

13) NINE HUNDRED YEARS OF TIME AND SPACE

“Rise, my friend. Let us hope you bring better news than the last messenger.”

Sometimes its worth the mess just to pointedly stare at a body to create the most dramatic effect.

“My lord…I believe I have discovered the origins of the wizard Zarathos.”

“…Proceed.”

Rookwood swallowed. “…Less than twenty-four hours before your Lord’s forces’ first encounter with him, an alignment of some note occurred for the first time in over three thousand years. There were many factors at play, but suffice it to say that there is solid evidence pointing to the alignment as the single most likely cause for Zarathos’ appearance.”

“Present this evidence, Rookwood.”

“Yes, my Lord. As I have said, it was an alignment not seen for over three thousand years. In fact, the last known time in recorded history that it occurred was…less than twenty-four hours before the sinking of Atlantis.”

…Bollocks.

“Furthermore, there is another reason this alignment was of particular note. It is the only known time that a particular ritual is able to be performed, and even then, a single miscalculation in either the preparation or the activation could potentially with your body reduced to dust and your existence erased from Time itself.”

Voldemort stared. Who on _Earth_ would ever be crazy enough to attempt such a thing knowing the possible consequences?

“The only source outside of the Department of Mysteries with knowledge of the ritual is the Lovegood family.”

…Well that answered that question.

“And did they perform this ritual on the date in question, Rookwood?”

“No, my Lord. I have inquired into the whereabouts of every member of the family, my Lord, and they were all accounted for. All except the youngest; and the odds are extremely low that a mere schoolboy would be able to accomplish such a thing without failing miserably.”

“If you will remember, Rookwood, I was a mere schoolboy once. And I was perfectly capable of producing terrible and ancient magics even then. Look into it.”

“As you wish, my Lord.”

“But first, you will explain this ritual to me. And just exactly why it offers such a horrible Fate to those who attempt it.”

Rookwood bent his head. “My Lord, the ritual is one designed to summon a being from the Beyond. One of the Endless, most powerful in all creation, or outside of it. That being will then be bound to your will until the task for which you summoned it is complete.”

“And what is the name of this being, Rookwood?”

“My Lord, it is said that the being is none other than…Death Itself.”

…Double bollocks.

“…Well, that would explain the steep price paid by those who fail.”

“As you say, my Lord. The Arithmancy used in the ritual is continuously changing, based on both how far away the caster is from the date of their birth…and the time of their death. It is known that the latter is calculated as a matter of course during the ritual, but it is unfortunately impossible to separate once calculated. This is due to the two items required to keep the caster suspended in Time long enough to complete the summoning: a pair of Time Turners, one tuned to exactly halfway between birth and the alignment, and the other tuned for between the alignment and death.”

“Time Turners cannot be set forward, Rookwood.”

“I am aware of that, my Lord. But the fact remains, that is what the output of the Arithmancy calls for.” Rookwood nervously shuffled from side to side. “My Lord…the meanings of less than a tenth of the runes used in the ritual are known, but among those that remain unknown…I was able to discern some of the ones Zarathos summoned in the air during the course of his first known appearance.”

“…Are you suggesting, Rookwood, that this…Zarathos…is none other than _Death Itself?”_

“My Lord, I honestly wish that were what I was suggesting. I fear that the truth is far, far worse.”

Worse? How could it be _worse_?

“At the time of the last known alignment, there was…a House. One known for its ability in Death magic. _True_ Death magic; not the bare bones of Necromancy we have today. It was rumored that they were powerful enough to bind Death permanently, bestowing upon themselves the title of the Masters of Death. And for a time, they were the most powerful wizards in existence in the kingdom of Atlantis.”

“The _Peverells.”_

“Correct, my Lord. But it was said that one of the members of the family, the middle of three brothers, realized the terrible mistake they had made; the disruption they had made in the natural order. This brother was reported to have committed suicide, thereby killing the connection between himself and his part of the ritual; one of the rumored ‘Deathly Hallows’. A Stone, utterly unremarkable in appearance, beyond a symbol inscribed on it. _This_ symbol.”

…It seemed Destiny had taken a personal interest in his life. Or, in this case, his Death. There was no mistaking the symbol; nor the Stone it had been etched upon. He had thought Zarathos merely hunting for his past, as the best, or his Horcruxes at the worst. But if he had been searching instead for the Stone…

Rookwood continued. “And if one were to replay the Pensieve viewing acquired from the Black family enough times, one would realize that this self-same outline can quite clearly be seen in the eyes of our infinitely dangerous wizard.”

It was Voldemort’s turn to swallow. “…And what happened to the rest of the family once the second brother rectified his so-called error?”

“The first brother was lost a mere, as you might have guessed, twenty-four hours later, when the island of Atlantis sunk to the depths. His Hallow is known to have outlived him, however, going on to inspire the legends of the Elder Wand and Deathstick, a weapon of nigh unbeatable power. It was last known to have been in possession of the wand-maker Gregorivitch. The third and last of the brothers was believed to have escaped his home’s destruction, and then to go on and marry into another prominent wizarding family of the time: the Gaunts. Their union was, however, cursed, for they were only able to produce a single daughter, with all other attempts resulting in a still-birth. That daughter then went on to marry the Heir of House of Potter, and upon the birth of their first son, the second part of the curse was revealed: an affliction of the hair, forever untamable, as a tribute to the foolishness of the idea that one could tame Death.”

“And their Hallow?”

“An Invisibility Cloak, my Lord. Rumored to grant the ability to hide from Death, or any other of the Endless for that matter.”

“And if one were to unite all three of these Hallows, would they then become the new Master of Death?”

“Unknown, my Lord. But the idea seems to have some merit, based upon what we know of Zarathos. My Lord, it all adds up. The Hallows, the ritual, the alignment, the name of Peverell versus the name of Potter, the Endless…there still exists a Master of Death in the world. The name he wears now may be different, but I can promise you my Lord, that the second brother did not die that day. He used the ritual of AshkHente to summon Death…and then to scatter himself along the path of Time itself, to wherever the natural order of Life and Death was being attacked.”

“An interesting theory, Rookwood. But what proof do you have that Zarathos and the second brother were one and the same?”

“My Lord, the name of the first brother was Antioch. The name of the third, Cadmus. But the name of the second…my Lord, it was… _Hadrian.”_

Hadrian.

Hadrian Peverell.

Harry Potter.

The Master of Death.

If such a man, nay, if such a _god_ had been summoned, perhaps by the natural order itself, to work against him…things may begin to go very, very badly indeed.

For the first time in a long while, the man once known as Tom Riddle found himself wishing he were well and truly drunk.

* * *

“So, Charlus. Tell me; just how is it that the first mention I hear of a new addition to the family is the arrival of an official notice from Gringotts bearing nothing more than his name? And would you be so kind as to explain just how it was that practically the entirety of House Black knew of his existence before I?”

“Ah.” Charlus swallowed. “Well, you see…”

Lucius Potter, his brother, and Head of the House of Potter, arched one eyebrow. “Yes?”

“You see he…” He cleared his throat, and took a deep breath. “ _He may or may not have killed well over seventy wizards and dark creatures within the past three days and neither I nor the Blacks wanted to do anything to piss him off.”_

He was not ashamed to admit he spouted that last bit off as fast as possible under his breath.

“…Repeat that again, Charlus. _Slowly._ ”

Charlus took another deep breath. “The reason a notice from Gringotts was your first indication of his relation to our family was because up until Cygnus and I essentially blackmailed him into an inheritance test, we could not say for certain he was a Potter. And due to the…circumstances…surrounding his existence’s revelation…we thought it best not to pry too much into his affairs, letting him tell us what he was comfortable with.”

“And I suppose these ‘circumstances’ just so happened to be the seventy counts of murder you just ascribed to him?”

“Self-defense in most cases, actually. And the only time he sought out the confrontation deliberately was against a particularly dangerous Dark creature.”

Lucius’ eyebrows furrowed. “Odd; the only Dark creature I know to have been successfully hunted within the last few days is…” He paled. “No.”

Charlus nodded. “Fenrir Greyback.”

“…Bloody hell. You mean to say that the new addition to the family is none other than _Zarathos?”_

“ _Lord_ Zarathos, actually. The goblin test was quite clear on that fact.”

“Bloody hell. And he’s managed to kill seventy people one by one in that short of a time frame?”

“One by one? Perish the thought. The first twenty all together, and then the next fifty as well. I shudder to think what his body count has risen to since I last saw him.”

* * *

Dumbledore shivered at the sudden chill that ran down his spine. Odd; for a brief moment, it had felt as if someone was walking over his grave. Ah, well. Best to put it out of his mind. He had more important things to attend to.

* * *

“So he took on fifty drunk lowlifes in Knockturn; so what? I have no doubts the average competent Auror could handle thirty.”

“I wish that was what they were, Lucius. The first twenty were a group of schoolchildren, just barely out of Hogwarts. But they had decided that the best possible sort of fun they could have was to set ablaze a Muggle pub just down the road from the Cauldron, and then to execute any and all survivors.”

“I take it that…that _Zarathos_ took violent exception to that decision?”

“Considering he was actually in the pub at the time? I’d say he was actually fairly restrained in his actions. At least he was intelligent enough to remove any evidence of his handiwork.”

“How on Earth did he manage to move twenty bodies before the Aurors arrived?”

“He Vanished them.”

“This is no time for jokes, Charlus.”

“Do you see me laughing, Lucius? I’m telling you, the man bloody _Vanished_ them. Poof! Gone! Not even a pile of ash! And I’ll tell you something else…”

Charlus leaned in. “ _He did it wandlessly.”_

“…Now I know you’re joking.”

“We have an eyewitness, Lucius. And a Pensieve recording.”

“Zarathos left a survivor?”

“No; he left a message. Among those twenty children were some of the most powerful Heirs of the upcoming generation; both the Lestranges, Dolohov, Jugson…all dead. Except one. The only member of the Black family present…Cygnus’ second-eldest daughter.”

“…Well, that certainly explains their interest in him. I assume her survival was the message?”

“Partially. He also gave quite a terrifying speech to the girl, meant for a man he somehow knew was not only responsible for the attack, but who would have access to a Pensieve in order to view the outcome in its entirety.”

“Not Cygnus.”

“No. Not a member of House Black at all; a man called Tom Riddle, a half-blood…and an up-and-coming Dark Lord.”

“…You’re serious. Oh Merlin, you’re serious. Bloody…didn’t we just do this! I thought that after Grindelwald it would be over for us!”

“So did I, Lucius. So did I. But this time, we have an advantage. We don’t have to rely on Dumbledore to end the fight. I believe that Zarathos is perfectly capable of finishing it on his own. The second attack I mentioned? A true Dark Lord wouldn’t be able to tolerate such an affront to his existence; he would’ve sent his very best troops to deal with him. And of those fifty…that time, the lack of coffins was the only message he sent back.”

Lucius stood, strode to the liquor stand, uncorked a bottle, and poured it straight down the hatch. Charlus could only watch in shock as his brother proceeded to drain a third of the bottle in one, long gulp.

When at last he finished, Lucius walked back to the table, slammed the bottle down, and pointed. “And just how the hell did you manage to get close without him taking you out too?”

Charlus swallowed. “…Cygnus. He sent for me after his own viewing of his daughter’s memory. He noticed something in the Pensieve recording, something anyone else would’ve been likely to miss. When Zarathos removed his helmet to deliver the message, his hair could be seen for the first time since the fight started. No doubt about it; it was Potter hair.”

 _“Peverell_ hair.” Lucius corrected.”

“Yes; not that Cygnus knows that. Well, he might now. Seeing as how Peverell was one of the Houses listed on Harry’s blood test.”

“Ah, so he’s _Harry_ now, is he?”

“It’s the name he will in all probability be teaching DADA at Hogwarts under, so yes, by all means Harry. Harry Potter. Although if Cygnus and his daughter have their way it won’t be long before its Harry Black.”

“That bad, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

“Apparently not. So, to sum up: we have a rising Dark Lord in hiding somewhere. A previously unknown member of my family has magically arisen to fight him. This family member has done such a smashing job so far that the Blacks, the most blood-thirsty House in all Britain, are prepared to offer him whatever they can just to get him on their side. Somehow, said family member had also gotten it into his head that teaching at Hogwarts will be a splendid idea, and not at all an invitation for every possible concerned party to investigate him.”

“Actually it was Dumbledore that put the idea in his head. And I believe that the Department of Mysteries is burying any and all investigation that may arise.”

“Not helping, Charlus!’

“Sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

Lucius took another swig. “To continue: not only will your son, my Heir, be going to Hogwarts for the first time this year, so will the Black’s, the Longbottom’s, and Merlin knows who else! There’s going to be _three_ factions recruiting, Charlus! Dumbledore, the Dark, and Za…and _Harry.”_

“Not three; two. Dumbledore’s thrown his lot behind Harry; for what reason, I can’t say, but last I heard he was putting together a coalition in the Wizengamot on Harry’s orders. Cygnus was going to try and drag Orion into it, and I…well, I guess I was probably planning on the same.”

“And you’ve done such smashing job of it, so far. All you’ve managed to do is give me a reason to fear him; not to trust him.”

“…Very well then. He did end up revealing to us certain aspects of his origin; however, he absolutely refused to name his parentage. All he would say was that the union of a Black and a Potter was directly responsible for him being alive today, and as long as Cygnus and I kept our current alliance, he would stand with us. As equals. Not as a Lord for us to bow the knee to, or as an armchair politician for us to win the favor of with useless platitudes, but as a brother.”

“All well and good, Charlus, but has he yet to actually do anything that would benefit the Potter family directly?”

“I convinced him to act as your favorite niece’s confidante during the remainder of her time at Hogwarts.”

“…All right then. That had to rankle in Cygnus’ craw, though.”

“Why should it have? He himself was pushing his eldest in Harry’s direction as well; such a powerful being is undoubtedly going to draw in female attention by the ton. Two wives is not completely out of the realm of possibility.”

“This isn’t India, Charlus.”

“I never said it was, Lucius. I was just merely pointing out that out of the last four mages Magic itself has decreed as a Lord, Harry is the only one we know for a fact is attracted to the fairer sex. And lets face it, its about time our society had an infusion of more powerful blood. The Muggleborns just aren’t cutting it anymore.”

“Hmm. You make a good point, Charlus. Very well; I will speak with Dumbledore about this alliance. Mayhaps we might even be able to cooperate long enough to actually get something done. And as for you…your lovely wife and sister are currently in the next room. One of which has just come from a meeting with the lovely Miss Druella Black. I would recommend you review your will before entering.”

Charlus gulped. “…A very wise idea, brother.”

* * *

“Let this meeting of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black come to order.”

Sirius had to resist the urge to tug in his collar. He’d always hated these things; the collars _and_ the family meetings. Both were uncomfortable, especially for him.

But for once, he actually had every intention of paying attention. There was a new piece on the board; one that had absolutely no intention of being used as a pawn. By the Blacks or anyone else.

Orion Black, Sirius’ father, and Head of the House of Black, laid the gavel once more down on the table. “We are gathered here today to discuss a potential threat to our very way of life.”

Walburga Black, Sirius’ mother, and the Lady of the House of Bitch (in his opinion), snorted. “Please. He’s one man. What could he possibly do?”

Uncle Cygnus answered. “Need I remind you that this one man managed to kill the most dangerous werewolf in England single-handledy, and without injury?”

“So he got lucky. Why should we care? Why should the House of Black be afraid of a simple Hit-Wizard who specializes in Dark Creatures?”

To Sirius’ utter surprise, it was his father’s turn to silence his mother. “Because Lord Zarathos is no mere Hit-Wizard. This Pensieve…” he gestured, “before us contains the House of Black’s first interaction with this man; with this…demon. Before you give any further opinion on the subject, I would suggest you watch it.”

Walburga rose, and with a sniff, dove in. So too did his Aunt Druella, Cygnus’ wife. Andy went as well; no surprise there. As the oldest cousin, it was her right.

But as the Heir of the House, it was _his_ duty.

He gave a silent gulp, steeled himself, and marched to the front of the table. “Father. I ask for your permission to view the memory.”

His father merely folded his hands together; if anyone else had seen, they would have missed it for what it was. A tell-tale reaction, one that spoke volumes to how worried the man was. “Are you sure, my son? I must warn you; the contents of that Pensieve are…not for the faint of heart.”

“I understand, father. But I am the Heir; it must be done, if I am to understand. Reg is too young; and my cousins are already biased in the matter. A fresh perspective would be wise.”

“…That it would. Very well. You may enter.”

Sirius turned back towards the steaming silver goblet, took a deep breath…and ducked his head under.

* * *

He reemerged to the sight of his mother screeching various indescribable noises at his father. A normal occurrence in their household. What was most decidedly _not_ normal was that fact that his father was apparently, for the first time in his life, shouting back.

“For the last time, woman, I will _not_ risk the lives of everyone in this House by drawing down the wrath of an actual Lord!”

“And what of the _Dark_ Lord, then? The one this family was all but ready to swear allegiance to at our last gathering? Are we to abandon him, to abandon his cause?”

“Damnation woman, can you not see? He abandoned us first! He cast out Bellatrix; that was as good as casting out all of us!”

“And why should he have not cast her out? If she had any self-respect, she would have died alongside the rest of her companions, giving us the perfect excuse to _destroy_ this Zarathos!”

She’d gone too far.

Sirius could see it in their faces; in his father’s, in his uncle’s, in his aunt’s…in _everyone’s._

“Walburga.” Oh, crap. That was his dad’s ‘this close to losing control’ voice. “At the very least, I had thought you a sincere woman. But you have just committed the biggest hypocrisy possible; you have, in practically the same breath, claimed to be looking out for the best interests of this House, and proclaimed it were better that we lose one of our own than to ally with one who could destroy us if he wished. If you were not my wife, I would cast you from the family. But since you are, I do hereby decree, as Head of House Black: no one of this family is to offer assistance or aid, directly or indirectly, to anyone associated or allied with the Dark Lord. As of this moment, our only goal is the pacification of Lord Zarathos, by any means necessary. I myself shall treat with Dumbledore, to see if there is any way we can further deepen our ties to his side. I shall also push for his instatement as DADA Professor at the meeting of the Board of Governors. And as for my nieces, I urge you to continue your association with the man. My sons…”

Sirius and Regulus both perked up at that.

“I wish that I had more to offer you in the way of advice, but I’m afraid this is all I can give: it is imperative you do everything possible to stay in his good graces while at school. Sirius, it is likely that Zarathos will be riding the Hogwarts Express with you. Find his cabin, introduce yourself, and do whatever you must to make him like you. Reg, you have a year yet for us to prepare, should your brother make an unfavorable impression. I shall begin personally seeing to some of your education, particularly in the Dark Arts; we do not wish for him to think either of you a mere average student. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good. Let this meeting of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black be adjourned.”

BANG!

As the occupants of the room rose to depart, Sirius caught a glimpse of his mother’s face. He shivered in fear; as far as he knew, that look had only one possible meaning.

He really hoped his father remembered to check his soup tonight.

He snorted; who was he kidding? They were Blacks. They checked everyone’s soup.

And then sold information on the soup’s contents to the highest bidder.

Hey, what could he say? It paid the bills.

* * *

Harry couldn’t help it; the memories just kept coming.

For just the latest time in his messed up life, he wished he’d been able to learn Occlumency. Even from Snape, bastard that he was.

He and Felwinter had barely arrived on Venus before the Vex promptly decided they were behind on their rent and tried to evict them from the premises. Lethally.

Fortunately, help was close at hand.

Unfortunately, it was someone who had every reason to want Harry _gone._

The Exo Stranger had most definitely _not_ been happy to see them; either of them. Apparently, not only had Shaxx never been meant to join the Iron Lords, but Felwinter was supposed to have died in the Battle for SIVA. And the Exo Stranger was sorely tempted to fix the timeline in that particular regard.

As you can imagine, Harry took violent exception to that.

By the time all three of them had finally settled into a begrudging peace, the Black Garden had been decimated, the Vault of Glass had been wrecked, Kabr, Pahanin, and Praedyth had all been saved, and the previous timeline had been utterly stomped on and reduced to tiny little pieces.

Which suited Harry just fine.

They’d hung around Venus for a couple of decades, Harry looking for a way home, and Felwinter and Ess (as they’d ended up nicknaming the Exo Stranger once she’d finally revealed her true origins) poking around for what the Vex knew about the Deep Stone Crypt. They didn’t get many visitors passing through, beyond Kabr’s fireteam and a wandering Titan named Wei (now _that_ was what Harry called a woman. Too bad she was taken), but they kept themselves busy.

At least, they did. Right up until Twilight Gap.

In the end, there had only been eight of them left. Shaxx, Harry, Eli, Felwinter, Ana Bray, Liu Feng, Andal Brask, and Wei’s partner Eriana (Wei herself was still off gallivanting Traveler knew where). They had been prepared to fight to the last man (or woman or Exo), when the order had come.

Saladin’s order.

The one that had finally convinced Harry that the only person he could actually trust to save humanity was, once again, himself.

Well, and his friends.

One of which Saladin had once been.

All in all, it was a hell of a day.

To make matters worse, it had been Eli who’d found Zavala, the Titan that had stood by Saladin’s orders to the very end. Eli had been mortified, and when the dust finally settled, Harry wasn’t surprised to see the old drifter’s feelings toward those of a morally-uptight attitude begin to mirror his own. Eli had no intention of calling his wandering quits; he was just gonna start looking for a new breed of Light-bearer. One who knew full well that caring was a strength, not a weakness.

No more Jedi, he’d said. And to hell with the Fallen. What the Last City _really_ needed…was Mandalorians.

Harry had dryly replied that it would they’d be a bit difficult to come by, considering they’d died out a few million years ago. That is if they’d ever existed at all.

Eli had merely given one of his knowing smiles and made a crack about how belief could make a lot of things true, even if they hadn’t been before.

And Harry couldn’t find it in himself to disagree.

They’d parted ways once again, the only difference this time being that Felwinter opted to stay with Eli and search. It was clear to him that Venus held no more answers about the past; it was time to go looking a little closer to home. Even if it took him once more into the path of Rasputin.

Harry was smart enough not to try and talk him out of it.

He’d instead opted for his own change of scenery; with Ess still on Venus, perhaps it was time to expand their search. Mercury was home to the Vex Infinite Forest, an as-of-yet untapped fount of information. And Harry had infinite lives to explore it with.

His mind began to drift at that point, just on the edge of sleep. The last thing he remembered before his eyes closed was that he certainly hoped someone had picked up the sidearm he’d lost at Twilight Gap. He’d been rather fond of that thing…


	14. I Never Met Someone Who Wasn't Important

I own nothing. Least of all this.

* * *

14) I NEVER MET SOMEONE WHO WASN’T IMPORTANT

“I must admit, when I first learned of this…alliance…I was not particularly expecting _you_ to be a part of it, Orion.”

“I could say the same of you, Lucius. Considering your sometimes loudly-stated opinions on the person running it.”

Dumbledore chuckled. “Oh, I can assure you gentlemen, I am running nothing here. We are all equals in this room; the only one of us with perhaps more pull than the others would be Auror Moody here.”

Moody snorted. “S’cause I’m the only one not bloody stupid enough to do any pulling in the first place. I ask. Bluntly. Something that politicians like you lot could all stand to learn.”

Croaker sighed. “Yes well, considering the point of this little rendezvous is to discuss how best to bring in _other_ politicians, perhaps we should stick best to what each of us is good at. Orion; Lucius. I trust each of you have received and viewed the Pensieve recording of Zarathos’ introduction to the wizarding world at large?”

Lucius nodded. “ _Lord_ Zarathos; and yes. And I am well-acquainted with the various…revelations…contained within that particular memory. But there is a very good chance that our friend Orion here may not be so well-informed. Would you like to explain, or shall I?”

“Considering that I myself have yet to actually _see_ the item in question, much less view its contents for myself, perhaps it would be for the best of you were to do the honors.”

And so Lucius Potter did. He laid out the history of the Peverell family in as great detail as he could manage; and when he was done, there was a long moment of silence as everyone present contemplated exactly what the connotations of such a history actually were.

So, this was it. Croaker had not only been told the complete truth of the matter by his…superior, but had been granted permission to reveal the same to the wizards now seated in front of him. If this alliance were to ever truly work, then there had to be an equal level of trust among all partners. If that meant spilling some of the deepest, darkest secrets contained within the depths of the Department of Mysteries? Then so be it.

“There’s more to the history of the Peverells than even you know, Lucius. More that even I, as Head Unspeakable, was only lucky enough to have revealed to me quite recently. The Peverells are…or I should say, were, one of the premier Magical Houses of the great empire of…Atlantis.”

Orion waved his hand in dismissal. “We’d already guessed as much, Croaker. You don’t become the only survivors of the sinking of an entire island without both the luck and the wealth to have a perfect escape plan in place.”

“As true as that may be, we believe there was yet another contributing factor at work in the Peverell’s survival: their primary focus of study. The area of expertise that earned them their rank in Atlantean society in the first place: Death Magic. Not just reanimation or Inferni, although there are some sources that indicate they were responsible for those as well. I mean actual, proper Necromancy with a capital N. And at the time of Atlantis’ sinking, it was rumored that the only remaining members of the family, three brothers, had successfully managed to…to bind Death Itself.”

“I really must advise against continuing this line of discussion, Croaker.” frowned Dumbledore. “If Lord Zarathos were to discover our speculation upon his past…it is feasible that he should see fit to put a stop to it. Permanently.”

Croaker leaned back in his chair. “Be that as it may, Albus, there are some things in this tale that absolutely must be understood by everyone here if we are to deal with the man successfully. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

“An excellent view of things, Head Unspeakable.” drawled Orion. “Most reasonable. By all means, continue.”

Croaker did so. “Now, each of these brothers was further rumored to have in their possession one…artifact…out of a set. Each represented a particular aspect of Death, and together, they were the source of their Mastery over the Endless. But one of the brothers came to believe that what the family had done was wrong; that their actions had gone against the very fabric of nature itself. He was further convinced when the ruling denizens of Atlantis struck a bargain with certain eldritch creatures to assure their own immortality, a bargain that would result in their own destruction if they did not do as commanded by the creatures.”

“Croaker…”

“Relax, Albus. I’m being as vague as I can possibly can. Now, the eldest of these brothers, a man named Cadamus, while not completely sharing his brother’s opinions on the matter, took the bargain as an affront to everything he and his family had accomplished within the last millennium. He spoke up against the rulers’ actions…and was condemned for it. The rulers took Cadamus and cursed him, dooming him to a shade of the immortality he had once enjoyed. Forever he would be tortured by the need to feast on human blood, forever driven to consume that which he himself could no longer produce. It was a mockery of not only his family’s power, but of the hunger that now flowed through the veins of the rulers themselves. And so Cadamus Peverell became Dracula Velspeme, the very first vampire. Atlantis’ greatest weapon of terror.”

Every single listener’s face now wore an expression of utter horror; Dumbledore included.

“The official story put forth by the rulers was that Cadmus had been executed; but the remaining two brothers knew better. And so they searched, trading what little power they had left for any scrap of information on the whereabouts of their missing family member. It wasn’t until they accidentally rearranged the letters in Cadamus’ new name that they finally realized what had been done to their brother. That Cadamus’ artifact was now in the hands of the highest-ranking official in Atlantis, the Chief Warlock, merely sealed the matter in their eyes. And so, they acted. The original brother, the one who had believed their House’s accomplishments to be abominations, began to make preparations to set things right, while the youngest, Antioch, worked his way into the good favor of the Chief Warlock himself. It was he that suggested the course of action that ultimately doomed Atlantis; and it was the other that was prepared for when the inevitable finally occurred. The armies of Atlantis made their final march…and the second brother broke his connection to his artifact. Thus freeing Death Itself to do what he could not. Atlantis fell that night, and the only survivors were those whom Atlantis had wronged in some way; the vampires, the werewolves, the goblins. Among them Cadamus, who took for himself the new name of Alucard to remind him of what Mastery of anything inevitably ended up costing, and Antioch, who was able to escape using his own remaining artifact. The one that I believe is still in your family’s possession to this day, Lucius.”

Lucius’ face went white as he realized exactly what the Invisibility Cloak stored in his Family’s Vault truly was.

Orion cleared his throat. “And what of the other? The second brother, the one that released Death?”

“Up until recently, we could only speculate upon his fate. If Antioch ever saw him again after that night, it was never recorded in our files. Theories have ranged from him paying the price of his soul to keep such a series of events from ever occurring again, to him being merely dragged down to the depths along with his fellow wizards, to being eviscerated by Death for his family’s failure. But there have come to light…certain…facts…that seem to suggest something else entirely: that the second brother survived that night, and after uniting all three artifacts, for however brief a time, was able to reverse the enchantment and bind himself eternally to Death; becoming It’s servant instead of It’s Master. To forever walk the Earth, going where Death instructed, to ensure there would be never again be a bargain-striker _or_ a Master of Death. And the name of this second brother, this man who achieved immortality by willingly giving up his life, was…Hadrian. Hadrian Peverell. Or, as you might know him today, Harry Potter. Lord Zarathos.”

“…Bloody hell.”

“…I think that’s putting it mildly, old chap.” Lucius shook his head. “Cor. The Herald of Death. The Grim Reaper himself.”

“Yes, I think we get the point, Lucius.”

“It’s all very well for you, Orion, you’re not bloody related to him.”

“Actually.” Croaker cleared his throat. “It has long been speculated that the Black family’s aptitude for the Dark Arts was perhaps the result of an infusion of vampire blood somewhere down the line.”

“…OH, COME ON!”

Lucius howled with laughter. “Not so high and mighty are you now, eh old boy?”

“Hmmph. At least if it had to be a vampire, I’m glad to know it was the most powerful one you could have asked for.”

“True.”

Lucius twirled his mustache. “And Zarathos…I suppose we should call him Harry, now…Harry did inform my younger brother that the whole reason for his existence was a Potter-Black alliance. We were thinking a marriage; but it seems we were mistaken. And there is certainly no stronger alliance than brotherhood.”

Croaker nodded. “Indeed. Now, as I said before, I myself have yet to actually witness Harry’s first confrontation. In fact, only two people in this room, as far as I know, actually have. Conversely, those same two are the only ones who have yet to hear the truth surrounding the _second_ incident that our mutual friend was drawn into dealing with. Victoriously, as Destiny would have it.”

Lucius frowned. “You mean Greyback, I presume? The werewolf?”

“No, Mr. Potter.” Dumbledore sighed. “He does not. And since I fear my own ability to recount the…incident…without accidentally revealing something dangerous, I shall pass this one along to my friend Auror Moody here.”

Said Auror merely grunted eloquently in response. “Right; there’s been a lot of explaining gone on round here, and if I’m being honest, I was out for most of it. So if I spout off something you lot want me to draw connections to in regards to whatever the hell it is that you were just talking about, you’re gonna be sorely disappointed. So, here’s what happened, best we could make out…”

* * *

“So tell me, my friend. Just how fares the tender young offspring of your dear departed brother?”

Alucard laughed. “You know just as well as I Arthur that of my brothers, only one was ever dear, and only one is departed. And as to the tender, young side of things? I’d say he’s well over a thousand, so not so good on that front. Bastard’s almost as sadistic as I am.”

“Yes, well, give a few more millennia and I’m sure he’ll be up to your level. Have the leaks in Gringotts been dealt with?”

“Of course. It was quite a pleasure to watch another professional at work, even if he does place more trust in magical artifacts than I myself.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“For one, he appears to be inordinately fond of a particular sword that he himself apparently created. ‘Dark-Drinker’, I believe he called it. Ironic. The blade was practically soaked in Dark Magic, but had been twisted back on itself in the most impressive display of self-cannibalism I’ve ever seen. The more he kills with it, the more powerful it grows, but the more ravenous as well.”

“…And doesn’t that remind you of a tale of a certain other group of foolhardy wizards that you yourself relayed to me?”

“It did, at first. Until I realized that Harry himself was drawing absolutely no power from the exchange. The sword is incapable of enticement, because it has nothing to entice with. If it were sentient, and there is a chance it may become just that once it devours enough…I’d say it would probably be driven to madness by that knowledge. As I said, impressive self-cannibalism.”

“Hmm. And the other trademarks of a Dredgen?”

“All present. The Thorn without a Rose, the arcing webs of lightning (although they were focused around a blade this time), a Golden Gun that rivaled my own in size…all there. But there was…something else, too. Something that, I think, might have to do with his status as the Master of the Endless.”

“Explain.”

“…It seemed as though…forgive me, it is hard to describe to someone without my senses…it seemed as though his very blood had been turned back on itself as well. Whether as a result of his unbinding from the flow of Time, or from something else, I cannot say. All I know is that when one of my wayward descendants saw fit to drink of him, the effect was almost instantaneous death. Or, it would have been, if a bullet from Harry’s gun hadn’t ended him first.”

Sir Arthur Helsing was many things; unprepared was not usually one of them. And yet, he found himself continuously being surprised by this…Harry Potter. Lord Zarathos, as decreed by Magic itself. And somehow, also a Dredgen. _The_ Dredgen. The Master of all the Endless.

And also their blade of execution.

“And he just _gave you_ one of the Hallows?’

“Sir, it is entirely possible that Harry feels as though some reparation ought to be made on my behalf. His fellow Dredgen did not linger for very long, as you will remember. Certainly not long enough to develop even a partial cure for my…affliction. If this were his way of offering me a chance to see my only dear brother one final time, I will not argue the point.”

“And neither should you. Your brother saved the world itself, that day. Even if he himself didn’t know until it was too late.”

So many questions…and only one way he knew of to gain any answers.

“Should Mr. Potter see fit to contact you again, you are to offer him your services as if he were himself a Helsing. Order Forty-Two is now in effect, Alucard.”

“…Understood, sir.”

“Oh, and one more thing.”

“Yes, sir?”

“If the worst should happen, does Helsing possess any chance at all of putting him down, permanently?”

“Sir Arthur, I doubt very much that anyone in the entire world has that power. Good day, sir.”

“Good day, Alucard.”

* * *

Voldemort stared out over what had once been his only tie to his Magical heritage.

Now, nothing remained. Not even the land itself. It had all been burned.

By Fiendfyre.

It was too much to hope that his Horcrux had managed to survive _that._ Even if Zarathos had been completely ignorant of his use for the Stone that had once lay in that Shack, even if he had only sought the Stone to keep anyone from misusing it once again, the end result was still the same.

A part of the Dark Lord’s soul had now been lost forever.

It was fortunate that he chose to inspect the damage himself. He truly could not afford to lose any more followers, and any that accompanied him would have likely found themselves dodging curses and ducking hexes as Voldemort took out his wrath upon the surrounding landscape.

When at last his rage was spent, he gathered himself, and Apparated back to his headquarters.

It was _extremely_ unfortunate that all his efforts to spare the lives of his servants was wasted when he received the news that was waiting for him.

“ _Soooo.”_ He hissed. “Zarathos is to present himself in front of the entire Board of Governors as the new Defense Against The Dark Arts Professor, hmm?”

The unnamed sycophant was shivering in fear. “Y-yes, my Lord.”

_Unacceptable._

That the very position he had striven for all those years ago, the very title that he himself had desired since his first year in Hogwarts, was to be just… _handed over…_ to an up-and-comer who possessed credentials that even he could not hope to best.

No, no, he couldn’t allow himself to think like that, _he couldn’t…_

_LORD VOLDEMORT WOULD NOT BE BEATEN!_

It wasn’t until his vision cleared of red that he realized there was now a rather visceral spray of blood around him in place of the minion that had up until recently been in front of him.

He Summoned every drop of blood from the room…and then drank it.

Ah, that hit the spot. Now, what to do…

“CARROW!”

The requested servant poked his head through the door. “Yes, my Lord?”

“Discover the time and location for the next meeting of the Hogwarts Board of Governors. I believe it would be best if I were to pay them a… _personal…_ visit.”

“Of course my Lord; right away, my Lord!”

Useless, the lot of them. But delectable…and unfortunately, necessary.

Now, what to do in the meantime?

A flash of inspiration struck.

“CARROW!”

“Yes, my Lord?”

“The Daily Prophet article detailing the death of Greyback. I seem to recall it mentioning something about Zarathos successfully defending others as well as himself. Tell me; do we happen to know just where Greyback’s location was on that particular night?”

Carrow squeaked. “I’ll find out immediately, my Lord!”

Oh, yes. And when he did…Lord Voldemort would be paying another personal visit.

One that promised pain and death to everyone present, one way or the other.

* * *

It had been a bloody stupid idea.

Finding the cave itself had been the easy part; no way hundreds of years of memories could dim his recollections of _that_ particular night. It was getting into the cave that was the hard part.

And in the end, for what?

Nothing.

Voldemort had prepared the area, true. Inferni abounded in the waters, and he could practically feel the wards just daring him to try another method of travel besides boat. A boat that was currently missing. Broom was out, Apparition was out, Portkey was out, even his Blinking was out since he really didn’t want to risk alerting Voldemort to his presence. Again.

He sighed. Times like these, he wished he were a through and through Titan or Warlock. Sword-flying would have come in clutch here.

He ended up smacking himself in the head once he realized he’d overlooked the obvious solution. Harden the air beneath him into a floor, but just enough above the water so as not to disturb it. Perfect.

All that thinking gone to waste once he realized the Locket hadn’t actually been placed there yet.

Still, at the very least he could booby trap the place. Magicals were all the same; never considering the fact that someday ,someone might just figure out how to harden Muggle devices enough to make them work while practically drowning in Magic.

A few tripmine grenades (plus a few extra surprises) made sure that whenever the Dark Lord actually came down here, he would have a very bad day indeed.

As Harry rode his broom away from the coast, he found himself being drawn back into another set of uncomfortable memories. Memories that reminded him all too much of _that night._ Memories of another world, another cave…another friend lost.

The very friend who’s gun he now carried, as a penance.

They hadn’t been ready for the Hellmouth; any of them. But what else could they have done?

He remembered exactly where he’d been when he’d first heard of Crota’s assault on the Moon. When he’d heard of the thousand Guardians slain, the Light forever drained from the universe. When he’d heard of Wei’s fate, and how she’d managed to crack Crota’s sword with the weight of her swing alone.

And when he’d heard Eriana’s pleading voice on the other end of his call to Eli, begging, pleading for him to come.

How could he say no?

Their first mistake had been going to Toland. The foremost expert on the Hive, no doubt about that. But they should have been prepared for what he eventually did. Harry should have been able to see it in his eyes. But Toland was a crafty little bugger; always kept his helmet on. Even to the very end.

It had been Eriana, Toland, Eris, Felwinter, Eli, and him. Just six. Six underprepared, under-experienced Guardians against the hordes of the Hive. And after Toland’s treachery, it had only been four.

When Eriana fell, it was like something in Harry snapped. He’d thought the likes of Saladin and Zavala would have prepared him for betrayal from behind; but apparently, they hadn’t. He had ripped and torn in his rage, from one end of the Hellmouth to the other, until it was done. And when at last they stood together at the end, two Guardians and three Ghosts less than what they’d started out with, he had taken Eriana’s cannon, so lovingly crafted for her sweet revenge…and put a bullet through his mouth.

He’d come back, of course. But he still kept that bullet. As a reminder. That at the end of the say, you couldn’t trust anyone. Not even yourself. And the greatest enemy you could ever face was the Darkness within.


End file.
